Update assq-delete-all to support keys of string type

[Kaushal]

Hi,

I wanted to use assq-delete-all to remove all elements in an alist whose car matched a string.

Example alist:

(setq temp-alist '(("a" . 1) ("b" . 2)))

Currently I cannot do

(setq temp-alist (assq-delete-all "a" temp-alist))

Is there a right way to do this?

For now, I just created a new function by simply replacing eq with string=

(defun assq-delete-all-string (key-str alist)

  "Delete from ALIST all elements whose car is a string and matches KEY-STR.

Return the modified alist.

Elements of ALIST that are not conses are ignored."

  (while (and (consp (car alist))

     (string= (car (car alist)) key-str))

    (setq alist (cdr alist)))

  (let ((tail alist) tail-cdr)

    (while (setq tail-cdr (cdr tail))

      (if (and (consp (car tail-cdr))

      (string= (car (car tail-cdr)) key-str))

 (setcdr tail (cdr tail-cdr))

(setq tail tail-cdr))))

  alist)

Can the assq-delete-all be updated to use string= when the KEY type is string and eq otherwise (if those two cases cover everything?)

In general I am requesting assq-delete-all to use

- `string=` if KEY is string

- `SOME-OTHER-FN` if KEY is SOME-OTHER-TYPE

- `eq` otherwise

--
Kaushal Modi