Special Read Syntax

Emacs Lisp represents many special objects and constructs via special hash notations.

‘#<…>’

Objects that have no read syntax are presented like this (see Printed Representation).

‘##’

The printed representation of an interned symbol whose name is an empty string (see Symbol Type).

‘#'’

This is a shortcut for function, see Anonymous Functions.

‘#:’

The printed representation of an uninterned symbol whose name is foo is ‘#:foo’ (see Symbol Type).

‘#N’

When printing circular structures, this construct is used to represent where the structure loops back onto itself, and ‘N’ is the starting list count:

(let ((a (list 1)))
  (setcdr a a))
=> (1 . #0)

‘#N=’

‘#N#’

‘#N=’ gives the name to an object, and ‘#N#’ represents that object, so when reading back the object, they will be the same object instead of copies (see Circular Objects).

‘#xN’

‘N’ represented as a hexadecimal number (‘#x2a’).

‘#oN’

‘N’ represented as an octal number (‘#o52’).

‘#bN’

‘N’ represented as a binary number (‘#b101010’).

‘#(…)’

String text properties (see Text Props and Strings).

‘#^’

A char table (see Char-Table Type).

‘#s(hash-table …)’

A hash table (see Hash Table Type).

‘?C’

A character (see Basic Char Syntax).

‘#$’

The current file name in byte-compiled files (see Docs and Compilation). This is not meant to be used in Emacs Lisp source files.

‘#@N’

Skip the next ‘N’ characters (see Comments). This is used in byte-compiled files, and is not meant to be used in Emacs Lisp source files.