Variable references in lisp

Question

Another newbie (Common) LISP question:

Basically in most programming languages there\'s a mean for functions to receive references to variables instead of just value

Answer 1

Macros are probably what you want, because they don't evaluate their arguments, so if you pass a variable name, you get a variable name, not its value.

INCF does exactly what you want, so if you google "defmacro incf" you'll find a whole bunch of definitions for this, some of which are even close to being correct. :-)

Edit: I was suggesting INCF not as an alternative to writing your own, but because it does what you want, and is a macro so you can easily find source code for it, e.g., ABCL or CMUCL.