Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!betelgeuse!halvers
From: halvers@betelgeuse.crd.ge.com (Pete Halverson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: INTERN in Common Lisp and "old" Lisp
Message-ID: <13101@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 25 Oct 90 14:14:25 GMT
References: <2725F2EA.6996@marob.masa.com>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: halverson@crd.ge.com (Pete Halverson)
Organization: General Electric Corporate R&D Center
Lines: 33

In article <2725F2EA.6996@marob.masa.com> cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan) writes:
>
>How does one do in Common Lisp what INTERN used to do? ...[namely,] took
>an "uninterned" (i.e. package-less) symbol, such as GENSYM generates, and
>made it "interned in a package".  

Well, if you're not worried about pointers to the original symbol, then
obviously something like

   (defun intern-symbol (symbol &optional (package *package*))
      (intern (symbol-name symbol) package))

will come close.  It doesn't address your goal of changing the original
symbol object, though.

>Since we can change a symbol 's package slot >to< NIL using UNINTERN,
>there should be some way to undo this (UNUNINTERN?  SET-PACKAGE?  (SETF
>(PACKAGE #:FOO) "LISP")?)

In Symbolics and Lucid CL, the function (setf symbol-package) seems to work
as expected, although Lucid makes you import it into the target
package first:

   (defun intern-symbol (symbol &optional (package *package*))
      #+lucid (import symbol package)
      (setf (symbol-package symbol) package)
      symbol)

--
===============================================================================
Pete Halverson                        		    INET: halverson@crd.ge.com 
GE Corporate R&D Center	                      UUCP: uunet!crd.ge.com!halverson
Schenectady, NY                     "Money for nuthin' and your MIPS for free"