As the subject says - why does the following expression give error when I try
to evaluate it in the *scratch* buffer?

((lambda (x) (x 2)) (lambda (n) (+ n 3)))

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As the subject says - why does the following expression give error when I try to evaluate it in the *scratch* buffer?

((lambda (x) (x 2)) (lambda (n) (+ n 3)))

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are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error)
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Tahsin Alam db.com> writes:

Because ((some call evaluating to a function)) isn't valid in emacs
lisp, which also means

(lambda (x) (x 2))

has no real meaning in elisp (it does in scheme, but not in elisp or
common lisp, because elisp and cl have separate namespaces for
functions and variables). You want either

(funcall (lambda (x) (funcall x 2)) (lambda (n) (+ n 3)))

or possibly

(list (lambda (x) (list x 2)) (lambda (n) (+ n 3)))

or some permutation of both.

Joost Diepenmaat writes:

unless, of course, you've got a (defun x (y) ...) somewhere...