Why does completing-read take an ALIST?

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Article #2076

#2076

From: David Spencer
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1993 00:11

19 lines
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I've never understood why the second arg to completing-read, 'TABLE',
is an alist.  As far as I can tell, the cdr's of each element are
not used, so why not just make it a list of strings?

i.e. you have to say

(setq table '(
	( "print" . nil )
	( "printer" . nil )
	( "plastic" . nil ))

Whereas I think that you should just be able to say:

(setq table '( "print" "printer" "plastic"))

As it seems lame to have to add on a '. nil' onto every element.

	Thanks,
		Dave

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!retix.com!dspencer

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Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!retix.com!dspencer
From: dspencer@mproj.retix.com (David Spencer)
Subject: Why does completing-read take an ALIST?
Message-ID: <1993Jan6.001155.1238@spock.retix.com>
Sender: dspencer@spock.retix.com (David Spencer)
Organization: Retix, Santa Monica CA
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:11:55 GMT
Lines: 20