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From: cox@Franz.COM (Charles A. Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Case sensitivity (Ugh, Again!)
Message-ID: <COX.91Jan10131558@crisp.Franz.COM>
Date: 10 Jan 91 21:15:58 GMT
References: <2872363025@ARTEMIS.cam.nist.gov> <10080@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@Franz.COM
Organization: Franz Inc., Berkeley, CA
Lines: 53

In article <10080@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> maverick@fir.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:

> In article <2872363025@ARTEMIS.cam.nist.gov>, miller@GEMcam.nist.gov
> (Bruce R. Miller) writes:
> > 
> > I'm given to understand that Allegro common lisp has a form
> > 
> >     (set-case-mode :case-sensitive-lower)  
> > 
> > such that, afterwards, Lisp code is case sensitive and to access the
> > `standard' lisp, one must type in lowercase.
> 
> No, this means that 'foo and 'FOO are the same symbol, print name "foo".

  You are probably thinking about (set-case-mode :case-insensitive-lower).
If you execute (set-case-mode :case-sensitive-lower) as above, then the
reader will intern distinct symbols for 'foo and 'FOO:

<cl> (set-case-mode :case-sensitive-lower)

:case-insensitive-upper 		<< Return value is previous mode
<cl> (eq 'foo 'FOO)

nil 
<cl> 

  Here are the options to excl:set-case-mode:

:case-insensitive-upper
  Standard Common Lisp mode.  Reader converts unescaped lowercase characters
  to uppercase.  All system symbols' names (eg. car, cdr) are in uppercase.
   (eq 'foo 'FOO) ==> T
 
:case-sensitive-lower
  Reader is case sensitive.  Thus (eq 'Foo 'foo) returns nil.  All system
  symbols' names are in lowercase.  This mode matches the conventions of C
  and Unix.
   (eq 'foo 'FOO) ==> nil

:case-sensitive-upper
  Reader is case-sensitive.  All system symbols' names are in uppercase.
  This mode matches the convention of Interlisp.
   (EQ 'foo 'FOO) ==> NIL

:case-insensitive-lower
  Similar to :case-insensitive-upper except that reader converts unescaped
  characters to lowercase.  All system symbols' names are in lowercase.
   (eq 'foo 'FOO) ==> t
--
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