Subject: Re: Parsing strings into LISP syntax From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/11/06 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3150903015555973@naggum.no> * Pascal Saremsky | So the question is, how do I create dynamically a symbol 'fn which stands | for the function (fn) from the input string "fn"? the function FIND-SYMBOL takes a string a returns a symbol with that name if it exists and a status keyword that says how the symbols is available in that package. you can use this to control access only to external functions in your user-accessible package. | And, how do I create dynamically a variable x which evaluates to itself | from the input string "x"? you use special variables for this, and the symbol lookup is just like FIND-SYMBOL. if the user shall be able to use new symbols, use INTERN instead of FIND-SYMBOL. | I've played with intern, gensym, make-symbol, etc. but to no avail, and | the Graham book does not go into great detail about them. INTERN should have given you a valuable lead. perhaps you have been using a different package inadvertently? if you post your code, however, helping you becomes significantly easier. #:Erik -- Attention Microsoft Shoppers! MS Monopoly Money 6.0 are now worthless.