On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, Yiu-Pun Wong wrote: Emacs and XEmacs both use the same Lisp dialect, known as Emacs Lisp, with a mostly similar library. Common Lisp is an ANSI standardized Lisp dialect with a number of implementations. There are a large number of stylistic and library differences between Emacs Lisp and Common Lisp. You will find that while there is a superficial similarity in syntax between the two it is almost impossible for a program written in one to work in the other.[1] If you are using GNU Emacs it's generally considered polite to ask questions about it of the authors of it. :) I presume that you wrote this in an Emacs buffer and evaluated it there. If you want to run Common Lisp programs in the Emacs environment then you should investigate the ILisp package. This will allow you to interact with a Common Lisp implementation from the Emacs environment. You can read more about the ILisp package by starting Emacs and entering: C-h C-i ilisp <ret> That should bring up the documentation. You will also need a Common Lisp system installed. For a beginner Allegro Common Lisp is a good choice. You should download their demonstration version and try that, at: <http://www.franz.com/> There are also a number of free Common Lisp implementations available. These have less well developed tools but allow full use of their features for free. Both clisp <http://clisp.cons.org/> and CMU Common Lisp are worth considering. <http://www.cons.org/cmucl/> If you intended to write Emacs Lisp code, another poster already mentioned the solution. If you intended Common Lisp code I hope I have pointed you in the right direction. Regards, Daniel Footnotes: [1] Tools and libraries to assist in porting from one to the other exist but they are far from complete. -- The scenario of terrorism, then, as a mutating virus that copies itself to American rage on its way to revenge against the host-scapegoat. -- Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, _Terrorism of Viral Power_