ANSI Common Lisp   2 Syntax   2.4 Standard Macro Characters   2.4.8 Sharpsign

2.4.8.3 Sharpsign Left-Parenthesis

#( and ) are used to notate a simple vector.

If an unsigned decimal integer appears between the # and (, it specifies explicitly the length of the vector. The consequences are undefined if the number of objects specified before the closing ) exceeds the unsigned decimal integer. If the number of objects supplied before the closing ) is less than the unsigned decimal integer but greater than zero, the last object is used to fill all remaining elements of the vector. The consequences are undefined if the unsigned decimal integer is non-zero and number of objects supplied before the closing ) is zero. For example,

 #(a b c c c c)
 #6(a b c c c c)
 #6(a b c)
 #6(a b c c)

all mean the same thing: a vector of length 6 with elements a, b, and four occurrences of c. Other examples follow:

 #(a b c)               ;A vector of length 3
 #(2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47)
                        ;A vector containing the primes below 50
 #()                    ;An empty vector

For information on how the Lisp printer prints vectors, see Section 22.1.3.4 Printing Strings, Section 22.1.3.6 Printing Bit Vectors, or Section 22.1.3.7 Printing Other Vectors.