'symbols, :symbols and ':symbols

The other day, hacking a kind of project manager for emacs (YES. Another one) which I will explain in a future post, I bumped in a couple of wtfs, that turned out to be my own mental fuckup, not an elisp wtf.

Let's dissect plist-get with different kinds of atoms as keys, and try to explain why they work or they don't. Little schemer style.

(plist-get '('directory ":fdsa" 'irc "channel") 'directory) ; nil

Why? The whole plist is is quoted, being a literal list, so if there's no need to re-quote it again.

(plist-get (list 'directory ":fdsa" 'irc "channel") 'directory) ; ":fdsa"

Why? We built the list with the list constructor, so we have to quote the symbol directory. because we want a simbol.

(plist-get '(:directory ":fdsa" 'irc "channel") 'directory) ; nil

Why? :directory is a different symbol from 'directory, and the whole thing is quoted.

(plist-get (list :directory ":fdsa" 'irc "channel") 'directory) ; nil

Why? the plist is not a literal, but again. :directory and 'directory are different things

(plist-get (list :directory ":fdsa" 'irc "channel") :directory) ; ":fdsa"

You see?

(plist-get '(:directory ":fdsa" 'irc "channel") :directory) ; ":fdsa"

And this is again correct. Makes sense, no?

Then, the relation between :foo and 'foo is none, but (eq :foo ':foo) is t.