6.5 Symbols

Builtin Class: <symbol>

A class for symbols.

Reader Syntax: |name|

Denotes a symbol that has weird name, i.e. the name including the characters which is not allowed in the R5RS symbol syntax. If the interpreter is running in case-insensitive mode, this syntax can be used to include uppercase characters in a symbol (See section Case-sensitivity).

The syntax is taken from CommonLisp. Some other Scheme implementation use it as well.

Function: symbol? obj

[R5RS] Returns true if and only if obj is a symbol.

(symbol? 'abc) ⇒ #t (symbol? 0) ⇒ #f (symbol? 'i) ⇒ #t (symbol? '-i) ⇒ #f (symbol? '|-i|) ⇒ #t

Function: symbol->string symbol

[R5RS] Returns the name of symbol in a string. Returned string is immutable.

(symbol->string 'foo) ⇒ foo

Function: string->symbol string

[R5RS] Returns a symbol whose name is a string string. String may contain weird characters.

(string->symbol "a") ⇒ a (string->symbol "A") ⇒ A (string->symbol "weird symbol name") ⇒ |weird symbol name|

Function: gensym &optional prefix

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