11 Packages   11.1 Package Concepts   11.1.1 Introduction to Packages   11.1.1.2 Symbols in a Package

11.1.1.2.3 Accessibility of Symbols in a Package

If a symbol is accessible in a package, it can be referred to when using the Lisp reader without a package prefix when that package is the current package, regardless of whether it is present or inherited.

Symbols from one package can be made accessible in another package in two ways.

• -- Any individual symbol can be added to a package by use of import. After the call to import the symbol is present in the importing package. The status of the symbol in the package it came from (if any) is unchanged, and the home package for this symbol is unchanged. Once imported, a symbol is present in the importing package and can be removed only by calling unintern.

  A symbol is shadowed₃ by another symbol in some package if the first symbol would be accessible by inheritance if not for the presence of the second symbol. See shadowing-import.

• -- The second mechanism for making symbols from one package accessible in another is provided by use-package. All of the external symbols of the used package are inherited by the using package. The function unuse-package undoes the effects of a previous use-package.