Effect of Readtable Case on the Lisp Printer

ToC

Allegro CL

22 Printer

22.1 The Lisp Printer

22.1.3 Default Print-Object Methods

22.1.3.3 Printing Symbols

22.1.3.3.2 Effect of Readtable Case on the Lisp Printer

When printer escaping is disabled, or the characters under consideration are not already quoted specifically by single escape or multiple escape syntax, the readtable case of the current readtable affects the way the Lisp printer writes symbols in the following ways:

:upcase
When the readtable case is :upcase, uppercase characters are printed in the case specified by *print-case*, and lowercase characters are printed in their own case.
:downcase
When the readtable case is :downcase, uppercase characters are printed in their own case, and lowercase characters are printed in the case specified by *print-case*.
:preserve
When the readtable case is :preserve, all alphabetic characters are printed in their own case.
:invert
When the readtable case is :invert, the case of all alphabetic characters in single case symbol names is inverted. Mixed-case symbol names are printed as is.

The rules for escaping alphabetic characters in symbol names are affected by the readtable-case if printer escaping is enabled. Alphabetic characters are escaped as follows:

:upcase
When the readtable case is :upcase, all lowercase characters must be escaped.
:downcase
When the readtable case is :downcase, all uppercase characters must be escaped.
:preserve
When the readtable case is :preserve, no alphabetic characters need be escaped.
:invert
When the readtable case is :invert, no alphabetic characters need be escaped.

22.1.3.3.2.1 Examples of Effect of Readtable Case on the Lisp Printer