<
programming> /ku'dr/ or /kuh'dr/ The
LISP operation that
returns the right-hand node of a
binary tree structure. In
the typical case where the tree is used to store a list, the
cdr is the tail of the list, i.e. all but the first element.
The instruction format of the
IBM 7090 that hosted the
original LISP implementation featured two 15-bit fields called
the "address" and "decrement" parts. The term "
cdr" was
originally "Contents of Decrement part of Register".
Similarly, "car" stood for "Contents of Address part of
Register".
[
Jargon File]
(2007-02-28)