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From: diamant@hpfcla.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: question for a Common Lisp guru
Message-ID: <8700002@hpfclp.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 02:45:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hpfclp.8700002
Posted: Sat Mar  1 02:45:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 09:28:23 EST
References: <1829@hammer.UUCP>
Organization: 01 Mar 86 00:45:00 MST
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/***** hpfclp:net.lang.lisp / hammer!patcl / 11:13 pm  Feb 24, 1986*/

The book Common Lisp (1984) says that "defun", used to
establish global function definitions, is a macro (p. 67).
Yet, this doesn't seem possible, as there does not seem to
be any special form which could be used to implement such
a macro. Also, there are some references in the book to
"defun" as a special form, although it is not listed
in the table of all special forms (p. 57). So, is the
book wrong to define "defun" as a macro, and should it really
be one of the special forms?

Pat Clancy
Tektronix
/* ---------- */

Defun can (and typically is) implemented with (setf (symbol-function ...

In particular, a simple definition (no error checking; documentation not
handled, etc) for defun is:

(defmacro defun (name &rest body)
    `(setf (symbol-function ',name #'(lambda ,@body))))


John Diamant
Fort Collins Systems Division	UUCP:  {ihnp4!hpfcla,hplabs}!hpfclp!diamant
Hewlett Packard Co.		ARPA/CSNET: diamant%hpfclp@hplabs
Fort Collins, CO