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prepend -- add an element to the beginning of a list

Synopsis

Description

i1 : prepend(3, {1, 7, 8, 3})

o1 = {3, 1, 7, 8, 3}

o1 : List
 
i2 : L = {"old", "old", "old"};
 
i3 : prepend("new", L)

o3 = {new, old, old, old}

o3 : List

The new list will be of the same class as L.

i4 : K = (a, b, c);
 
i5 : prepend(z, K)

o5 = (z, a, b, c)

o5 : Sequence

Only a single element can be prepended with this function. To prepend the elements of a list, use join. To add the new element to the end of the list, or at a particular index, use append or insert, respectively.

i6 : join((x, y, z), K)

o6 = (x, y, z, a, b, c)

o6 : Sequence
 
i7 : append(K, z)

o7 = (a, b, c, z)

o7 : Sequence
 
i8 : insert(1, z, K)

o8 = (a, z, b, c)

o8 : Sequence

Prepend always returns a new list, rather than modifying the input list, even if L is a MutableList.

i9 : L = new MutableList from {2,3,5};
 
i10 : peek prepend(7, L)

o10 = MutableList{7, 2, 3, 5}
 
i11 : peek L

o11 = MutableList{2, 3, 5}

Notice that the order of the arguments is switched in prepend versus append: we write prepend(x, L) and append(L, x). A good way to remember this is that the new element is visually placed before or after the list, depending on where we want it to appear in the output.

See also

Ways to use prepend :

For the programmer

The object prepend is a compiled function.