Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!apple!cambridge.apple.com!alms
From: alms@cambridge.apple.com (Andrew L. M. Shalit)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: DeKleer's ATMS: the continuing saga
Message-ID: <ALMS.89Aug30142708@brazil.cambridge.apple.com>
Date: 30 Aug 89 18:27:08 GMT
References: <19543@usc.edu>
Sender: news@cambridge.apple.com
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22
In-reply-to: burke@pollux.usc.edu's message of 29 Aug 89 08:20:57 GMT


  ...
     As you can see, the atom y seems to have two print-names, depending on the
   context, and format seems be in the second category.  CCL seems to have a 
   policy of lower casing all atoms typed in by the user, I suppose because
   programmers usually write lisp in lower case and want to see lower case in
   debuggers and inspectors.  It seems as if the print name is converted to 
   upper case only for the purpose of looking up symbol bindings. Whether this
   is orthodox Common Lisp I cannot say.
   ...
      I have looked in vain in CLTL for a specification that format should use
   the canonical print-name of a symbol, unless you count p304, "To get the
   string representation of a number or any other Lisp object, use
   prin1-to-string, princ-to-string, or format."  The functions which are
   specified to return a symbol's print-name, "symbol-name" and "string" get
   no mention. Hmmm.
   ...

Check out the variable *print-case*.  If *PRINT-CASE* is :UPCASE, then
symbols are printed in upper-case.  If it's :DOWNCASE, then symbols are
printed in lower-case.  It looks like someone is setting the value of
*PRINT-CASE* to :DOWNCASE in your init file.