From ... Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!isdnet!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!129.240.148.23!uio.no!Norway.EU.net!127.0.0.1!nobody From: Erik Naggum Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: quick question Date: 15 Nov 2000 01:06:58 +0000 Organization: Naggum Software; vox: +47 800 35477; gsm: +47 93 256 360; fax: +47 93 270 868; http://naggum.no; http://naggum.net Lines: 31 Message-ID: <3183239218922663@naggum.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 974251021 19807 195.0.192.66 (15 Nov 2000 01:17:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@eunet.no NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Nov 2000 01:17:01 GMT mail-copies-to: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.7 Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.lisp:3851 * Jonathan Wohlgelernter | a quick question from inexperienced LISP user: | what does the # symbol do, as in the following code: | | (DO ((RULE-# 1 (+ 1 RULE-#)) | (MAX-NUMB (KEYWD-NUMB-DECOMPS KEY))) | | (( > RULE-# MAX-NUMB) NIL) ; End Test # is a constituent character in that context. As such, it does nothing (special) or exactly the same as the character -. (Note that in the context of Lisp, "symbol" should not be confused with character even though the two are sometimes interchangeable in other contexts.) * Barry Margolin | In Common Lisp '#' is used as a prefix character for a number of special | sequences, but that's obviously not going on here. It looks like it's | written in a dialect of Lisp where # is treated as an alphanumeric | character, since it's just using it as part of the variable name, as an | abbreviation for "number". Well, # is a non-terminating macro character in Common Lisp, so symbol names like RULE-# are perfectly valid, although somewhat unusual, such as because people think it is a terminating macro character... #:Erik -- ALGORITHM: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation. ALGOREISM: a procedure for solving an electoral problem in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.