Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!bu-cs!purdue!mailrus!ames!vsi1!wyse!td2cad!mipos3!merlyn
From: merlyn@intelob.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz @ Stonehenge)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.bug
Subject: Re: "format" function suggestion
Message-ID: <2977@mipos3.intel.com>
Date: 5 Oct 88 17:48:42 GMT
References: <8810050713.AA02552@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu>
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Reply-To: merlyn@intelob.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz @ Stonehenge)
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Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via BiiN, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
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In-reply-to: phr@WHEATIES.AI.MIT.EDU (Paul Rubin)

In article <8810050713.AA02552@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu>, phr@WHEATIES (Paul Rubin) writes:
| I suggest a new conversion spec, "%g" perhaps (after
| G format in Fortran), to convert any object to its
| printed form like prin1-to-string.
| Also (nitpick) format's doc str does not describe %o or %x.

And, as 18 people around the world are probably also typing in an
answer to say,

  (format "%s" val)

is identical to

  (format "%s" (prin1-to-string val))

because of some very handy undocumented feature.  I found this one the
hard way.
-- 
Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095
on contract to BiiN Technical Information Services (for now :-),
in a former Intel building in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
<merlyn@intelob.intel.com> or ...!tektronix!inteloa[!intelob]!merlyn
Standard disclaimer: I *am* my employer!