9.2.7 Special Forms

A special form is a primitive function specially marked so that its arguments are not all evaluated. Most special forms define control structures or perform variable bindings--things which functions cannot do.

Each special form has its own rules for which arguments are evaluated and which are used without evaluation. Whether a particular argument is evaluated may depend on the results of evaluating other arguments.

Here is a list, in alphabetical order, of all of the special forms in Emacs Lisp with a reference to where each is described.

and

see section 10.3 Constructs for Combining Conditions

catch

see section 10.5.1 Explicit Nonlocal Exits: catch and throw

cond

see section 10.2 Conditionals

condition-case

see section 10.5.3.3 Writing Code to Handle Errors

defconst

see section 11.5 Defining Global Variables

defmacro

see section 13.4 Defining Macros

defun

see section 12.4 Defining Functions

defvar

see section 11.5 Defining Global Variables

function

see section 12.7 Anonymous Functions

if

see section 10.2 Conditionals

interactive

see section 21.3 Interactive Call

let

let*

see section 11.3 Local Variables

or

see section 10.3 Constructs for Combining Conditions

prog1

prog2

progn

see section 10.1 Sequencing

quote

see section 9.3 Quoting

save-current-buffer

see section 27.2 The Current Buffer

save-excursion

see section 30.3 Excursions

save-restriction

see section 30.4 Narrowing

save-window-excursion

see section 28.17 Window Configurations

setq

see section 11.8 How to Alter a Variable Value

setq-default

see section 11.10.2 Creating and Deleting Buffer-Local Bindings

track-mouse

see section 29.13 Mouse Tracking

unwind-protect

see section 10.5 Nonlocal Exits

while

see section 10.4 Iteration

with-output-to-temp-buffer

see section 38.8 Temporary Displays

Common Lisp note: Here are some comparisons of special forms in GNU Emacs Lisp and Common Lisp. setq, if, and catch are special forms in both Emacs Lisp and Common Lisp. defun is a special form in Emacs Lisp, but a macro in Common Lisp. save-excursion is a special form in Emacs Lisp, but doesn't exist in Common Lisp. throw is a special form in Common Lisp (because it must be able to throw multiple values), but it is a function in Emacs Lisp (which doesn't have multiple values).