Up: Arguments to Functions [Index]
Since LISP has a tendency to evaluate the arguments to a function, we sometimes have need to distinguish between the objects supplied to a function, and the objects that the function operates on. We will refer to the objects present in a call to a function as the supplied arguments. We will call their values, upon which the computation is performed, as the actual arguments. Thus, ‘(+ 3 7)’ above is an argument supplied to ‘*’, while ‘10’ is the corresponding actual argument. We will use the undifferentiated term argument to refer to either the supplied argument or the actual argument. In most situations it will be clear from the context which object is being referred to.