[slime-devel] Re: :new-features command

[Helmut Eller]

* Brad Beveridge [2006-11-06 08:29+0100] writes:

> SBCL's reader barfs on the symbol CFFI-FEATURES:DARWIN, because the
> host side doesn't have have the package CFFI-FEATURES.  Which is fair
> enough.
> I'm guessing that the Emacs interpreter doesn't bother resolving the
> symbols, so there is no problem.  Later on Slime prefixes ":" in front
> of the non-keyword symbols, presumably to make them into keyword
> symbols.

I think, Slime only adds the ":" when it parses features expressions
in source buffers, not for the message from the wire.

> Am I understanding this correctly?

Yes.  By convention, messages on the wire should only contain
keywords, nil, and t.  But this convention isn't enforced, and the
:new-features message obviously violates the convention.

> Is it possible to move the keyword
> interning to the Swank side?  If so, I'll try to write a patch for
> that.

I'm not sure what you mean with "interning" here.  Instead of
including the symbols in the message we could send a string 
[e.g. created with
 (let ((*package* <keyword-package>)) (prin1-to-string <new-features>))].

Are thinking about something else?

Helmut.