When a form is a macro call, it expands into a new form for Lisp to evaluate. We may or may not show the actual result of the evaluation of the expanded form. Sometimes to help describe one form we show another form which produces identical results. Printing Notation Many of the examples in this manual print text when they are evaluated. You should be aware that text displayed in the echo area is truncated to a single line.
Some examples cause errors to be signaled.
In such cases, the entire contents of the buffer in question are included between two lines of dashes containing the buffer name. Format of Descriptions Functions, variables, macros, commands, user options, and special forms are described in this manual in a uniform format. The first line of a description contains the name of the item followed by its arguments, if any. The description follows on succeeding lines, sometimes with examples. In a function description, the name of the function being described appears first.