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From: jonl@LUCID.COM (Jon L White)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.clos
Subject: Accessing Class Slots
Message-ID: <9102272209.AA09488@kolyma>
Date: 27 Feb 91 22:09:27 GMT
References: <1991Feb25.214049.29326@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Sender: welch@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: inet
Organization: CommonLoops
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re: Does any one know if there is a way in standard CLOS to access the value
    of a class-allocated slot given the class (and not an instance of it)?

The 1988 CLOS spec certainly doesn't provide such a capability, and the
emerging metaobject protocols do not do so either.

However, in the previously-alluded "introspective" subset of the metaobject
protocol I believe there is a function CLOS:CLASS-PROTOTYPE, and you
can use that as a quick way to get an instance without consing up
a fresh one each time.  E.g.,

  (defun shared-slot-value (class slot-name)
    (slot-value (clos:class-prototype class) slot-name))


-- JonL --