Do symbols need to be EQ?
Edi Weitz
edi at weitz.de
Fri Jul 3 07:09:26 UTC 2015
Just out of curiosity and without any relevance in practise:
Is there one place in the standard where it is explicitly said that
two symbols which are the "same" symbol must be "identical"? I know
that there are a couple of examples where this is implied, but
formally the examples aren't part of the standard, right?
The EQ dictionary entry for example shows this example:
(eq 'a 'a) => true
and then it continues with this note (emphasis mine): "Symbols that
print the same USUALLY are EQ to each other because of the use of the
INTERN function."
And the entry for INTERN is actually the closest I could find in terms
of clarification because it says that if a symbol of a specified name
is already accessible, _IT_ is returned -- which sounds like object
identity to me.
But how does this fit into the picture?
CL-USER 1 > (defparameter *s* 'foo)
*S*
CL-USER 2 > (unintern 'foo)
T
CL-USER 3 > (defparameter *s2* 'foo)
*S2*
CL-USER 4 > (eq *s* *s2*)
NIL
*S* has lost its home package and is thus not EQ to *S2*, sure, but
how do we explain this in terms of object identity? Has the UNINTERN
operation changed the identity of *S* which once was the one and only
CL-USER::FOO but can't be anymore because this role is now occupied by
*S2*?
Did I miss some clarifying words in the standard? Did I just manage
to confuse myself?
Thanks,
Edi.
PS: The UNINTERN entry warns about side effects which could harm
consistency, so maybe this is what they meant?
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