A syntax table is a char-table (see section Char-Tables). The element at index c describes the character with code c. The element's value should be a list that encodes the syntax of the character in question.
Syntax tables are used only for moving across text, not for the Emacs Lisp reader. Emacs Lisp uses built-in syntactic rules when reading Lisp expressions, and these rules cannot be changed. (Some Lisp systems provide ways to redefine the read syntax, but we decided to leave this feature out of Emacs Lisp for simplicity.)
Each buffer has its own major mode, and each major mode has its own idea of the syntactic class of various characters. For example, in Lisp mode, the character `;' begins a comment, but in C mode, it terminates a statement. To support these variations, Emacs makes the choice of syntax table local to each buffer. Typically, each major mode has its own syntax table and installs that table in each buffer that uses that mode. Changing this table alters the syntax in all those buffers as well as in any buffers subsequently put in that mode. Occasionally several similar modes share one syntax table. See section Major Mode Examples, for an example of how to set up a syntax table.
A syntax table can inherit the data for some characters from the standard syntax table, while specifying other characters itself. The "inherit" syntax class means "inherit this character's syntax from the standard syntax table." Just changing the standard syntax for a characters affects all syntax tables which inherit from it.
t if object is a syntax table.
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