Newbie Design Question

From: Jeff Katcher (jmkatcher_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/23/03 

Date: 22 Nov 2003 20:08:28 -0800

I'm back to LISP after having been away for a long, long time (it's
_hard_ to break the SETQ habit :). BTW, this is not homework of any
sort.

Anyway, I have a function in my current program which is a planner of
sorts. It takes a list of stuff as a parameter and builds lists of
candidates for action.

Pseudo-code:
(defun chain-stuff (stuff-list start end level)
   (if (<= start end)
      (dolist (stuff stuff-list)
         (when (eligible-p stuff start)
            (chain-stuff stuff-list (+ start 5) end
               (append level stuff))
         )
      ) level
   )
)

What I'd like to return is a list of the accumulated lists (which
would be "level" at the if-else case), but can't think of a way to
do it other than appending to something outside the function's scope.
(Which I viscerally recognize as abhorrent...:)

Thanks in advance,

Jeffrey Katcher

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