[armedbear-devel] eql for java objects

[Ville Voutilainen]

On 25 April 2010 21:37, Erik Huelsmann <ehuels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Our Java side JavaObject class is merely a box for a Java instance
> value (a pointer to a Java object, if you will)

The abstract boxing is an implementation detail. If you want to walk
through that implementation detail in order to find out whether there
are java enums underneath the boxing, CLHS won't stop you.

> 2. The definitions of EQ and EQL talk about Objects, but I interpret
> them to refer to the first meaning in [1], not to instances of lisp
> classes

Objects in this case are not object-oriented in any way; multiple languages,
object-oriented or not, have a term object that means an addressable
thing that may have multiple references (in the case of lisp, dynamic and
lexical) to it. As far as I can see, Common Lisp is not at all
different in this regard.
Numbers are objects. Sequences are objects. CLOS objects are objects.

> 4. From point (1) and the definitions of EQ and EQL, I concur with
> Alan that "raison d'etre" of EQL should equally apply to JavaObjects

I do believe that it's within the CL spec to do EQL to JavaObjects wrapping
enums/ints so that the values are inspected, and as java-reference comparison
to others. Some JavaObjects are numbers. Some are not.