Subject: Re: Simple characters in the CL Standard
From: Erik Naggum <clerik@naggum.no>
Date: 1998/04/11
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3101242725805421@naggum.no>


* Paul Dietz
| I have a question for CL Standards gurus:

  I'll try to answer, anyway.

| Is there a standard way in Common Lisp to determine if a character is a
| simple character?

  does (typep <character> 'base-char) cut it?

| However, in two lisps I've tried the string containing a single null
| character, produced by
| 
| 	(make-string 1)
| or by
| 	(make-string 1 :initial-element (code-char 0))
| 
| prints as "^@", even with *PRINT-READABLY* set to true.  This reads back
| in as a two character string (^ and @).

  do you mean that

  (length (read-from-string (write-to-string (string (code-char 0)) :readably t)))

  returns 2, not 1?

  I can't see that it does that anywhere I try it.  what do you do to make
  the length become 2?
  
#:Erik
-- 
  religious cult update in light of new scientific discoveries:
  "when we cannot go to the comet, the comet must come to us."