From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: Parsing strings into LISP syntax Date: 1999/11/06 Message-ID: <3150919724070777@naggum.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 545352597 References: <80027o$v1$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu> <801pjl$bnq$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu> <3150903015555973@naggum.no> <802a6i$p4v$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu> <802c4f$qk0$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu> mail-copies-to: never X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 941930924 17329 195.0.192.66 (6 Nov 1999 23:28:44 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; +47 8800 8879 or +1 510 435 8604; fax: +47 2210 9077; http://www.naggum.no NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Nov 1999 23:28:44 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Pascal Saremsky | Because the second intern returns an instance of the same symbol. Please | correct me if I'm wrong, otherwise this works fine for me! almost correct: INTERN returns the exact same value every time¹. the whole point with INTERN is precisely that: to return _the_ symbol that has the name given by the argument, so if the two strings are EQUAL (that is, STRING=), then the symbols returned will be EQ. you may have gotten this point, already, but your wording left an ambiguity -- symbols don't have instances, they _are_ instances. #:Erik, persnicketeer ------- ¹ barring intervening UNINTERN calls or changes to *PACKAGE*. -- Attention Microsoft Shoppers! MS Monopoly Money 6.0 are now worthless.