Subject: Re: Reading from file: without escape Backslash From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 06 Sep 2002 22:30:05 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3240340205017513@naggum.no> * Thomas Guettler | But isn't \n a newline? In Common Lisp, \ in strings only really escapes the " that would terminate the string, but since there is a need for an escape character, also itself. Another way to do this would be let two delimiters become one, but that was a path not taken for Common Lisp. The reason for this is that \ is useful to make certain that any character is really a constituent in the print name of symbols. Note that Common Lisp has both a single-escape and a multiple-escape mechanism with \ and |, respectively. The latter, however, also makes letters retain their case, so the decision to use | over \ also has to be balanced for aesthetics. There is nothing syntactically wrong in writing code |with| |symbols| |like| |this|, but it tends to get on people's nerves. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.