Symbol Attributes

All symbols have four basic attributes, most important is the print name of the symbol. This is a string containing the name of the symbol, after it has been defined (when the symbol is first created) it may not be changed.

Function: symbol-name symbol

This function returns the print name of the symbol symbol.

(symbol-name 'unwind-protect)
    => "unwind-protect"

Each symbol also has a value cell storing the value of this symbol when it is referenced as a variable. Usually this cell is accessed implicitly by evaluating a variable form but it can also be read via the symbol-value function(8) (see section Variables).

Similar to the value cell each symbol also has a function cell which contains the function definition of the symbol (see section Named Functions). The symbol-function function can be used to read this cell and the fset function to set it.

Lastly, there is the symbol's property list, this is similar to an alist (see section Association Lists) and provides a method of storing arbitrary extra values in each symbol. See section Property Lists.

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