Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!tank!shamash!opus.cdc.com!ttran
From: ttran@opus.cdc.com (Tuyen Tran )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Garbage Collecting symbols
Message-ID: <11867@shamash.cdc.com>
Date: 16 Mar 89 19:52:48 GMT
Sender: news@shamash.cdc.com
Reply-To: ttran@opus.cdc.com (Tuyen Tran )
Organization: Control Data Corporation, Bloomington, MN
Lines: 15

If the only path from the root to a symbol is through the symbol's
package, and the symbol's value/function/plist cells are empty, is it 
safe to remove the symbol?

Some LISPs use the existance of a symbol on a package to shadow 
inherited symbols of the same name.  It seems to me that removing
empty symbols in some cases would affect the behavior of the
system.

Take the CommonLisp package scheme for example, under what conditions,
EXACTLY, can symbols be removed?

-T. Tran

ttran@opus.cdc.com