Each entry in this glossary has the following parts:

• the term being defined, set in boldface.
• the part or parts of speech, set in italics. If a term can be used as several parts of speech, there is a separate definition for each part of speech.
• one or more definitions, organized as follows:
  • an optional number, present if there are several definitions. Lowercase letters might also be used in cases where subdefinitions of a numbered definition are necessary.
  • an optional part of speech, set in italics, present if the term is one of several parts of speech.
  • an optional discipline, set in italics, present if the term has a standard definition being repeated. For example, "Math."
  • an optional context, present if this definition is meaningful only in that context. For example, "(of a symbol)".
  • the definition.
  • an optional example sentence. For example, "This is an example of an example."
  • optional cross references.

In addition, some terms have idiomatic usage in the Common Lisp community which is not shared by other communities, or which is not technically correct. Definitions labeled "Idiom." represent such idiomatic usage; these definitions are sometimes followed by an explanatory note.

Words in this font are words with entries in the glossary. Words in example sentences do not follow this convention.

When an ambiguity arises, the longest matching substring has precedence. For example, "complex float" refers to a single glossary entry for "complex float" rather than the combined meaning of the glossary terms "complex" and "float."

Subscript notation, as in "something_n" means that the n-th definition of "Glossary" is intended. This notation is used only in situations where the context might be insufficient to disambiguate.

The following are abbreviations used in the glossary:

n.

• an alternative notation for writing the symbol nil, used to emphasize the use of nil as an empty list.

adj.

• 1. (of a time) representing a specific point in time.
• 2. (of a pathname) representing a specific position in a directory hierarchy. See relative.

n., v.t.

• 1. v.t. (a place, or array) to read₁ or write₁ the value of the place or an element of the array.
• 2. n. (of a place) an attempt to access₁ the value of the place.

n.

• the state of being accessible.

adj.

• 1. (of an object) capable of being referenced.
• 2. (of shared slots or local slots in an instance of a class) having been defined by the class of the instance or inherited from a superclass of that class.
• 3. (of a symbol in a package) capable of being referenced without a package prefix when that package is current, regardless of whether the symbol is present in that package or is inherited.

n.

• an operator that performs an access. See reader and writer.

adj.

• 1. (of a handler, a restart, or a catch tag) having been established but not yet disestablished.
• 2. (of an element of an array) having an index that is greater than or equal to zero, but less than the fill pointer (if any). For an array that has no fill pointer, all elements are considered active.

n.

• (of an array) a generalized boolean that is associated with the array, representing whether the array is actually adjustable. See also expressed adjustability and adjustable-array-p.

n., Trad.

• an argument.

n.

• (of an array) the type for which the array is actually specialized, which is the upgraded array element type of the expressed array element type of the array. See array-element-type.

n.

• (of a complex) the type in which the real and imaginary parts of the complex are actually represented, which is the upgraded complex part type of the expressed complex part type of the complex.

n., Trad.

• an argument.

adj.

• (of an array) such that adjust-array can adjust its characteristics by direct modification. A conforming program may depend on an array being actually adjustable only if either that array is known to have been expressly adjustable or if that array has been explicitly tested by adjustable-array-p.

n.

• (of an array) 1. expressed adjustability. 2. actual adjustability.

adj.

• (of an array) 1. expressly adjustable. 2. actually adjustable.

n.

• a method having the qualifier :after.

n.

• an association list.

n., adj.

• 1. adj. (of a character) being one of the standard characters A through Z or a through z, or being any implementation-defined character that has case, or being some other graphic character defined by the implementation to be alphabetic₁.
• 2.
  • a. n. one of several possible constituent traits of a character. For details, \seesection\ConstituentChars\ and \secref\ReaderAlgorithm.
  • b. adj. (of a character) being a character that has syntax type constituent in the current readtable and that has the constituent trait alphabetic_2a. \Seefigure\ConstituentTraitsOfStdChars.

adj.

• (of a character) being either an alphabetic₁ character or a numeric character.

n.

• the standard character that is called "ampersand" (&). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

adj.

• 1. (of a class or function) having no name
• 2. (of a restart) having a name of nil.

adj.

• having a home package of nil. (An apparently uninterned symbol might or might not be an uninterned symbol. Uninterned symbol have a home package of nil, but symbols which have been uninterned from their home package also have a home package of nil, even though they might still be interned in some other package.)

adj.

• 1. (of a handler) being an applicable handler.
• 2. (of a method) being an applicable method.
• 3. (of a restart) being an applicable restart.

n.

• (for a condition being signaled) an active handler for which the associated type contains the condition.

n.

• (of a generic function called with arguments) a method of the generic function for which the arguments satisfy the parameter specializers of that method. \Seesection\SelApplMeth.

n.

• 1. (for a condition) an active handler for which the associated test returns true when given the condition as an argument.
• 2. (for no particular condition) an active handler for which the associated test returns true when given nil as an argument.

\issue{CONDITION-RESTARTS:PERMIT-ASSOCIATION}

v.t.

• (a function to a list) to call the function with arguments that are the elements of the list. "Applying the function + to a list of integers returns the sum of the elements of that list."

\issue{CONDITION-RESTARTS:PERMIT-ASSOCIATION}

n.

• 1. (of a function) an object which is offered as data to the function when it is called.
• 2. (of a format control) a format argument.

\issue{FORMAT-STRING-ARGUMENTS:SPECIFY}

n.

• the order in which arguments are evaluated in a function call. "The argument evaluation order for Common Lisp is left to right." \Seesection\Evaluation.

n.

• the order in which the arguments to a generic function are considered when sorting the applicable methods into precedence order.

n.

• a method having the qualifier :around.

n.

• an object of type array, which serves as a container for other objects arranged in a Cartesian coordinate system.

n. (of an array)

• 1. a type associated with the array, and of which all elements of the array are constrained to be members.
• 2. the actual array element type of the array.
• 3. the expressed array element type of the array.

n.

• the total number of elements in an array, computed by taking the product of the dimensions of the array. (The size of a zero-dimensional array is therefore one.)

v.t.

• (a variable) to change the value of the variable in a binding that has already been established. See setq.

n.

• a list of conses representing an association of keys with values, where the car of each cons is the key and the cdr is the value associated with that key.

n.

• the standard character that is variously called "asterisk" or "star" (*). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• the standard character that is variously called "commercial at" or "at sign" (@). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• any object that is not a cons. "A vector is an atom."

adj.

• being an atom. "The number 3, the symbol foo, and nil are atomic."

n.

• a type specifier that is atomic. For every atomic type specifier, x, there is an equivalent compound type specifier with no arguments supplied, (x).

n.

• (of a character) a program-visible aspect of the character. The only standardized attribute of a character is its code₂, but implementations are permitted to have additional implementation-defined attributes. \Seesection\CharacterAttributes. "An implementation that support fonts might make font information an attribute of a character, while others might represent font information separately from characters."

n.

• a variable that occurs in the part of a lambda list that was introduced by &body. Unlike all other variables introduced by a lambda list, aux variables are not parameters.

n.

• a member of one of two sets of methods (the set of primary methods is the other) that form an exhaustive partition of the set of methods on the method's generic function. How these sets are determined is dependent on the method combination type; \seesection\IntroToMethods.

n.

• the standard character that is variously called "grave accent" or "backquote" (`). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• the standard character that is variously called "reverse solidus" or "backslash" (\). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• a character

\issue{CHARACTER-VS-CHAR:LESS-INCONSISTENT-SHORT} of type base-char.

n.

• a string of type base-string.

n.

• a method having the qualifier :before.

adj.

• (of a stream) being both an input stream and an output stream.

adj.

• 1. (of a stream) being a stream that has an element type that is a subtype of integer. The most fundamental operation on a binary input stream is read-byte and on a binary output stream is write-byte. See character.
• 2. (of a file) having been created by opening a binary stream. (It is implementation-dependent whether this is an detectable aspect of the file, or whether any given character file can be treated as a binary file.)

v.t. (a variable)

• to establish a binding for the variable.

n.

• an association between a name and that which the name denotes. "A lexical binding is a lexical association between a name and its value." When the term binding is qualified by the name of a namespace, such as "variable" or "function," it restricts the binding to the indicated namespace, as in: "let establishes variable bindings." or "let establishes bindings of variables."

n.

• an object of type bit; that is, the integer 0 or the integer 1.

n.

• a specialized array that is of type (array bit), and whose elements are of type bit.

n.

• a specialized vector that is of type bit-vector, and whose elements are of type bit.

n.

• an object which names one of the sixteen possible bit-wise logical operations that can be performed by the boole function, and which is the value of exactly one of the constant variables boole-clr, boole-set, boole-1, boole-2, boole-c1, boole-c2, boole-and, boole-ior, boole-xor, boole-eqv, boole-nand, boole-nor, boole-andc1, boole-andc2, boole-orc1, or boole-orc2.

n.

• a named lexical exit point, established explicitly by block or implicitly by operators such as loop, do and prog, to which control and values may be transfered by using a return-from form with the name of the block.

n.

• the symbol that, within the lexical scope of a block form, names the block established by that block form. See return or return-from.

n.

• a lambda list that is syntactically like an ordinary lambda list, but that is processed in "By Order of Argument" style. \Seesection\BoaLambdaLists.

n.

• a parameter available in certain lambda lists which from the point of view of conforming programs is like a rest parameter in every way except that it is introduced by &body instead of &body. (Implementations are permitted to provide extensions which distinguish body parameters and rest parameters - e.g. the forms for operators which were defined using a body parameter might be pretty printed slightly differently than forms for operators which were defined using rest parameters.)

n.

• an object of type boolean; that is, one of the following objects: the symbol t (representing true), or the symbol nil (representing false). See generalized boolean.

n.

• (of an object O₁) any object O₂ that has the same truth value as O₁ when both O₁ and O₂ are viewed as generalized booleans.

adj., v.t.

• 1. adj. having an associated denotation in a binding. "The variables named by a let are bound within its body." See unbound.
• 2. adj. having a local binding which shadows₂ another. "The variable *print-escape* is bound while in the princ function."
• 3. v.t. the past tense of bind.

n.

• a declaration that refers to or is associated with a variable or function and that appears within the special form that establishes the variable or function, but before the body of that special form (specifically, at the head of that form's body). (If a bound declaration refers to a function binding or a lexical variable binding, the scope of the declaration is exactly the scope of that binding. If the declaration refers to a dynamic variable binding, the scope of the declaration is what the scope of the binding would have been if it were lexical rather than dynamic.)

adj.

• (of a sequence S, by an ordered pair of bounding indices i_start and i_end) restricted to a subrange of the elements of S that includes each element beginning with (and including) the one indexed by i_start and continuing up to (but not including) the one indexed by i_end.

n.

• (of a sequence with length n) either of a conceptual pair of integers, i_start and i_end, respectively called the "lower bounding index" and "upper bounding index", such that 0 <= istart <= iend <= n, and which therefore delimit a subrange of the sequence bounded by i_start and i_end.

n. (for a sequence)

• one of two objects that, taken together as an ordered pair, behave as a designator for bounding indices of the sequence; that is, they denote bounding indices of the sequence, and are either: an integer (denoting itself) and nil (denoting the length of the sequence), or two integers (each denoting themselves).

n.

• a variant of the normal Lisp read-eval-print loop that is recursively entered, usually because the ongoing evaluation of some other form has been suspended for the purpose of debugging. Often, a break loop provides the ability to exit in such a way as to continue the suspended computation. See break.

n.

• an output stream of type broadcast-stream.

n.

• a class that is a generalized instance of class built-in-class.

n.

• one of the types in \figref\StandardizedAtomicTypeSpecs.

n.

• 1. adjacent bits within an integer. (The specific number of bits can vary from point to point in the program; see function byte.)
• 2. an integer in a specified range. (The specific range can vary from point to point in the program; see functions open and write-byte.)

n.

• an object of implementation-dependent nature that is returned by the function byte and that specifies the range of bits in an integer to be used as a byte by functions such as ldb.

n.

• (of an object) the car of the cdr of that object.

v.t., n.

• 1. v.t. (a function with arguments) to cause the code represented by that function to be executed in an environment where bindings for the values of its parameters have been established based on the arguments. "Calling the function + with the arguments 5 and 1 yields a value of 6."
• 2. n. a situation in which a function is called.

n.

• an initialization form along with the lexical environment in which the form that defined the initialization form was evaluated. "Each newly added shared slot is set to the result of evaluating the captured initialization form for the slot that was specified in the defclass form for the new class."

n.

• 1. a. (of a cons) the component of a cons corresponding to the first argument to cons; the other component is the cdr. "The function rplaca modifies the car of a cons." b. (of a list) the first element of the list, or nil if the list is the empty list.
• 2. the object that is held in the car₁. "The function car returns the car of a cons."

n. (of a character)

• the property of being either uppercase or lowercase. Not all characters have case. "The characters #\A and #\a have case, but the character #\$ has no case."\Seesection\CharactersWithCase\ and the function both-case-p.

n.

• one of the symbols :upcase, :downcase, :preserve, or :invert.

n.

• an exit point which is established by a catch form within the dynamic scope of its body, which is named by a catch tag, and to which control and values may be thrown.

n.

• an object which names an active catch. (If more than one catch is active with the same catch tag, it is only possible to throw to the innermost such catch because the outer one is shadowed₂.)

n. (of an object)

• the cdr of the cdr of that object.

n.

• 1. a. (of a cons) the component of a cons corresponding to the second argument to cons; the other component is the car. "The function rplacd modifies the cdr of a cons." b. (of a list L₁) either the list L₂ that contains the elements of L₁ that follow after the first, or else nil if L₁ is the empty list.
• 2. the object that is held in the cdr₁. "The function cdr returns the cdr of a cons."

n., Trad. (of an object)

• a conceptual slot of that object. The dynamic variable and global function bindings of a symbol are sometimes referred to as its value cell and function cell, respectively.

n., adj.

• 1. n. an object of type character; that is, an object that represents a unitary token in an aggregate quantity of text; \seesection\CharacterConcepts.
• 2. adj.
  • a. (of a stream) having an element type that is a subtype of character. The most fundamental operation on a character input stream is read-char and on a character output stream is write-char. See binary.
  • b. (of a file) having been created by opening a character stream. (It is implementation-dependent whether this is an inspectable aspect of the file, or whether any given binary file can be treated as a character file.)

n.

• 1. one of possibly several attributes of a character.
• 2. a non-negative integer less than the value of char-code-limit that is suitable for use as a character code₁.

n.

• a designator for a character; that is, an object that denotes a character and that is one of: a designator for a string of length one (denoting the character that is its only element),or a character (denoting itself).

\issue{CHARACTER-PROPOSAL:2-1-1}

adj.

• 1. (of a list) a circular list.
• 2. (of an arbitrary object) having a component, element, constituent₂, or subexpression (as appropriate to the context) that is the object itself.

n.

• a chain of conses that has no termination because some cons in the chain is the cdr of a later cons.

n.

• 1. an object that uniquely determines the structure and behavior of a set of other objects called its direct instances, that contributes structure and behavior to a set of other objects called its indirect instances, and that acts as a type specifier for a set of objects called its generalized instances. "The class integer is a subclass of the class number." (Note that the phrase "the class foo" is often substituted for the more precise phrase "the class named foo" - in both cases, a class object (not a symbol) is denoted.)
• 2. (of an object) the uniquely determined class of which the object is a direct instance. See class-of. "The class of the object returned by gensym is symbol." (Note that with this usage a phrase such as "its class is foo" is often substituted for the more precise phrase "its class is the class named foo" - in both cases, a class object (not a symbol) is denoted.)

n.

• a designator for a class; that is, an object that denotes a class and that is one of: a symbol (denoting the class named by that symbol; see function find-class) or a class (denoting itself).

n.

• a unique total ordering on a class and its superclasses that is consistent with the local precedence orders for the class and its superclasses. For detailed information, \seesection\DeterminingtheCPL.

v.t.

• (a stream) to terminate usage of the stream as a source or sink of data, permitting the implementation to reclaim its internal data structures, and to free any external resources which might have been locked by the stream when it was opened.

adj.

• (of a stream) having been closed (see close). Some (but not all) operations that are valid on open streams are not valid on closed streams. \Seesection\OpenAndClosedStreams.

n.

• a lexical closure.

v.t.

• (literal objects that are similar) to consolidate the identity of those objects, such that they become the same object. \Seesection\CompilationTerms.

n.

• 1. Trad. any representation of actions to be performed, whether conceptual or as an actual object, such as forms, lambda expressions, objects of type function, text in a source file, or instruction sequences in a compiled file. This is a generic term; the specific nature of the representation depends on its context.
• 2. (of a character) a character code.

v.t.

• (an object to a type) to produce an object from the given object, without modifying that object, by following some set of coercion rules that must be specifically stated for any context in which this term is used. The resulting object is necessarily of the indicated type, except when that type is a subtype of complex; in that case, if a complex rational with an imaginary part of zero would result, the result is a rational rather than a complex - \seesection\RuleOfCanonRepForComplexRationals.

n.

• the standard character that is called "colon" (:). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• the standard character that is called "comma" (,). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• the process of compiling code by the compiler.

n.

• 1. An environment that represents information known by the compiler about a form that is being compiled. \Seesection\CompilationTerms.
• 2. An object that represents the compilation environment₁ and that is used as a second argument to a macro function (which supplies a value for any &body parameter in the macro function's definition).

n.

• an interval during which a single unit of compilation is occurring. see macro with-compilation-unit.

v.t.

• 1. (code) to perform semantic preprocessing of the code, usually optimizing one or more qualities of the code, such as run-time speed of execution or run-time storage usage. The minimum semantic requirements of compilation are that it must remove all macro calls and arrange for all load time values to be resolved prior to run time.
• 2. (a function) to produce a new object of type compiled-function which represents the result of compiling the code represented by the function. See compile.
• 3. (a source file) to produce a compiled file from a source file. See compile-file.

n.

• the duration of time that the compiler is processing source code.

n.

• a definition in the compilation environment.

n.

• 1. compiled functions.
• 2. code that represents compiled functions, such as the contents of a compiled file.

n.

• a file which represents the results of compiling the forms which appeared in a corresponding source file, and which can be loaded. See compile-file.

n.

• an object of type compiled-function, which is a function that has been compiled, which contains no references to macros that must be expanded at run time, and which contains no unresolved references to load time values.

\issue{COMPILED-FUNCTION-REQUIREMENTS:TIGHTEN}

n.

• a facility that is part of Lisp and that translates code into an implementation-dependent form that might be represented or executed efficiently. The functions compile and compile-file permit programs to invoke the compiler.

n.

• an auxiliary macro definition for a globally defined function or macro which might or might not be called by any given conforming implementation and which must preserve the semantics of the globally defined function or macro but which might perform some additional optimizations. (Unlike a macro, a compiler macro does not extend the syntax of Common Lisp; rather, it provides an alternate implementation strategy for some existing syntax or functionality.)

\issue{DEFINE-COMPILER-MACRO:X3J13-NOV89}

n.

• 1. the process of translating a form into another form by a compiler macro.
• 2. the form resulting from this process.

n.

• a function form or macro form whose operator has a definition as a compiler macro, or a funcall form whose first argument is a function form whose argument is the name of a function that has a definition as a compiler macro.

n.

• a function of two arguments, a form and an environment, that implements compiler macro expansion by producing either a form to be used in place of the original argument form or else nil, indicating that the original form should not be replaced. \Seesection\CompilerMacros.

n.

• an object of type complex.

n.

• an object of type complex which has a complex part type that is a subtype of float. A complex float is a complex, but it is not a float.

n. (of a complex)

• 1. the type which is used to represent both the real part and the imaginary part of the complex.
• 2. the actual complex part type of the complex.
• 3. the expressed complex part type of the complex.

n.

• an object of type complex which has a complex part type that is a subtype of rational. A complex rational is a complex, but it is not a rational. No complex rational has an imaginary part of zero because such a number is always represented by Common Lisp as an object of type rational; \seesection\RuleOfCanonRepForComplexRationals.

n.

• an object of type complex which has a complex part type that is a subtype of single-float. A complex single float is a complex, but it is not a single float.

n.

• a stream that is composed of one or more other streams. "make-synonym-stream creates a composite stream."

n.

• 1. Idiom. a constituent part of an object.
• 2. a constituent part of a structure. See defstruct.
• 3. a slot.

Editor Note: This glossary entry is not a part of the original specification and was added based on context.

n.

• a non-empty list which is a form: a special form, a lambda form, a macro form, or a function form.

n.

• a type specifier that is a cons; i.e. a type specifier that is not an atomic type specifier. "(vector single-float) is a compound type specifier."

n.

• an input stream of type concatenated-stream.

n.

• 1. an object which represents a situation - usually, but not necessarily, during signaling.
• 2. an object of type condition.

n.

• one or more objects that, taken together, denote either an existing condition object or a condition object to be implicitly created. For details, \seesection\ConditionDesignators.

n.

• a function that might be invoked by the act of signaling, that receives the condition being signaled as its only argument, and that is permitted to handle the condition or to decline. \Seesection\Signaling.

n.

• a function that describes how a condition is to be printed when the Lisp printer is invoked while *print-escape* is false. \Seesection\PrintingConditions.

n.

• a point in output where a newline might be inserted at the discretion of the pretty printer. There are four kinds of conditional newlines, called "linear-style," "fill-style," "miser-style," and "mandatory-style." See pprint-newline and \secref\DynamicControlofOutput.

n.

• a state achieved by proper and complete adherence to the requirements of this specification. \Seesection\Conformance.

n.

• code that is all of part of a conforming program.

n.

• an implementation, used to emphasize complete and correct adherance to all conformance criteria. A conforming implementation is capable of accepting a conforming program as input, preparing that program for execution, and executing the prepared program in accordance with this specification. An implementation which has been extended may still be a conforming implementation provided that no extension interferes with the correct function of any conforming program.

n., ANSI

• a conforming implementation.

n.

• a program, used to emphasize the fact that the program depends for its correctness only upon documented aspects of Common Lisp, and can therefore be expected to run correctly in any conforming implementation.

n.

• conforming to the rules of lambda list congruency, as detailed in \secref\GFMethodLambdaListCongruency.

n., v.

• 1. n. a compound data object having two components called the car and the cdr.
• 2. v. to create such an object.
• 3. v. Idiom. to create any object, or to allocate storage.

n.

• 1. a constant form.
• 2. a constant variable.
• 3. a constant object.
• 4. a self-evaluating object.

n.

• any form for which evaluation always yields the same value, that neither affects nor is affected by the environment in which it is evaluated (except that it is permitted to refer to the names of constant variables defined in the environment), and that neither affects nor is affected by the state of any object except those objects that are otherwise inaccessible parts of objects created by the form itself. "A car form in which the argument is a quote form is a constant form."

n.

• an object that is constrained (e.g. by its context in a program or by the source from which it was obtained) to be immutable. "A literal object that has been processed by compile-file is a constant object."

n.

• a variable, the value of which can never change; that is, a keyword₁ or a named constant. "The symbols t, nil, :direction, and most-positive-fixnum\ are constant variables."

n., adj.

• 1.
  • a. n. the syntax type of a character that is part of a token. For details, \seesection\ConstituentChars.
  • b. adj. (of a character) having the constituent_1a syntax type₂.
  • c. n. a constituent_1b character.
• 2. n. (of a composite stream) one of possibly several objects that collectively comprise the source or sink of that stream.

n. (of a character)

• one of several classifications of a constituent character in a readtable. \Seesection\ConstituentChars.

n.

• a stream whose source or sink is a Lisp object. Note that since a stream is another Lisp object, composite streams are considered constructed streams. "A string stream is a constructed stream."

n.

• a process whereby operations on objects of differing types (e.g. arithmetic on mixed types of numbers) produce a result whose type is controlled by the dominance of one argument's type over the types of the other arguments. \Seesection\NumericContagionRules.

n. (of an error)

• an error that is correctable by the continue restart.

n.

• 1. a form that establishes one or more places to which control can be transferred.
• 2. a form that transfers control.

n.

• 1. (of a cons C) a fresh cons with the same car and cdr as C.
• 2. (of a list L) a fresh list with the same elements as L. (Only the list structure is fresh; the elements are the same.) See copy-list.
• 3. (of an association list A with elements A_i) a fresh list B with elements B_i, each of which is nil if A_i is nil, or else a copy of the cons A_i. See copy-alist.
• 4. (of a tree T) a fresh tree with the same leaves as T. See copy-tree.
• 5. (of a random state R) a fresh random state that, if used as an argument to to the function random would produce the same series of "random" values as R would produce.
• 6. (of a structure S) a fresh structure that has the same type as S, and that has slot values, each of which is the same as the corresponding slot value of S. (Note that since the difference between a cons, a list, and a tree is a matter of "view" or "intention," there can be no general-purpose function which, based solely on the type of an object, can determine which of these distinct meanings is intended. The distinction rests solely on the basis of the text description within this document. For example, phrases like "a copy of the given list" or "copy of the list x" imply the second definition.)

\issue{DEFSTRUCT-COPIER:ARGUMENT-TYPE}

adj. (of an error)

• 1. (by a restart other than abort that has been associated with the error) capable of being corrected by invoking that restart. "The function cerror signals an error that is correctable by the continue restart." (Note that correctability is not a property of an error object, but rather a property of the dynamic environment that is in effect when the error is signaled. Specifically, the restart is "associated with" the error condition object. \Seesection\AssocRestartWithCond.)
• 2. (when no specific restart is mentioned) correctable₁ by at least one restart. "import signals a correctable error of type package-error if any of the imported symbols has the same name as some distinct symbol already accessible in the package."

\issue{CONDITION-RESTARTS:PERMIT-ASSOCIATION}

n. (in a dynamic environment)

• the radix that is the value of *read-base* in that environment, and that is the default radix employed by the Lisp reader and its related functions.

n.

• the context of the innermost lexically enclosing use of pprint-logical-block.

n. (in a dynamic environment)

• the radix that is the value of *print-base* in that environment, and that is the default radix employed by the Lisp printer and its related functions.

n. (in a dynamic environment)

• the package that is the value of *package* in that environment, and that is the default package employed by the Lisp reader and Lisp printer, and their related functions.

n. (in a dynamic environment)

• the pprint dispatch table that is the value of *print-pprint-dispatch* in that environment, and that is the default pprint dispatch table employed by the pretty printer.

n. (in a dynamic environment)

• the random state that is the value of *random-state* in that environment, and that is the default random state employed by random.

n. (in a dynamic environment)

• the readtable that is the value of *readtable* in that environment, and that affects the way in which expressions₂ are parsed into objects by the Lisp reader.

n., Trad.

• a type.

n.

• the bidirectional stream that is the value of the variable *debug-io*.

n.

• a facility that allows the user to handle a condition interactively. For example, the debugger might permit interactive selection of a restart from among the active restarts, and it might perform additional implementation-defined services for the purposes of debugging.

n.

• a global declaration or local declaration.

n.

• one of the symbols declaration, dynamic-extent, ftype, ignore, inline, notinline, optimize, special, or type; or a symbol which is the name of a type; or a symbol which has been declared to be a declaration identifier by using a declaration declaration.

\issue{SYNTACTIC-ENVIRONMENT-ACCESS:RETRACTED-MAR91}

n.

• an expression that can appear at top level of a declare expression or a declaim form, or as the argument to proclaim, and which has a car which is a declaration identifier, and which has a cdr that is data interpreted according to rules specific to the declaration identifier.

v.

• to establish a declaration. See declare, declaim, or proclaim.

v. (of a handler)

• to return normally without having handled the condition being signaled, permitting the signaling process to continue as if the handler had not been present.

n.

• absolute time, represented as an ordered series of nine objects which, taken together, form a description of a point in calendar time, accurate to the nearest second (except that leap seconds are ignored). \Seesection\DecodedTime.

n.

• a method having no parameter specializers other than the class t. Such a method is always an applicable method but might be shadowed₂ by a more specific method.

n.

• a list of alternating initialization argument names and values in which unsupplied initialization arguments are defaulted, used in the protocol for initializing and reinitializing instances of classes.

n.

• a lambda list used by the :arguments option to define-method-combination. \Seesection\DefMethCombArgsLambdaLists.

n.

• a lambda list used by define-modify-macro. \Seesection\DefineModifyMacroLambdaLists.

n.

• a symbol the meaning of which is defined by Common Lisp.

n.

• a form that has the side-effect of establishing a definition. "defun and defparameter are defining forms."

n.

• a lambda list that is like an ordinary lambda list except that it does not permit &body and that it permits use of &body. \Seesection\DefsetfLambdaLists.

n.

• a lambda list that is like a macro lambda list except that the default value for unsupplied optional parameters and keyword parameters is the symbol * (rather than nil). \Seesection\DeftypeLambdaLists.

\issue{DEFTYPE-KEY:ALLOW} \issue{DEFTYPE-DESTRUCTURING:YES}

adj., ANSI, IEEE (of a float)

• conforming to the description of "denormalized" as described by {\IEEEFloatingPoint}. For example, in an implementation where the minimum possible exponent was -7 but where 0.001 was a valid mantissa, the number 1.0e-10 might be representable as 0.001e-7 internally even if the normalized representation would call for it to be represented instead as 1.0e-10 or 0.1e-9. By their nature, denormalized floats generally have less precision than normalized floats.

n.

• a type specifier which is defined in terms of an expansion into another type specifier. deftype defines derived types, and there may be other implementation-defined operators which do so as well.

n.

• a type specifier for a derived type.

n.

• an object that denotes another object. In the dictionary entry for an operator if a parameter is described as a designator for a type, the description of the operator is written in a way that assumes that appropriate coercion to that type has already occurred; that is, that the parameter is already of the denoted type. For more detailed information, \seesection\Designators.

adj. (of an operator)

• capable of modifying some program-visible aspect of one or more objects that are either explicit arguments to the operator or that can be obtained directly or indirectly from the global environment by the operator.

n.

• an extended lambda list used in destructuring-bind and nested within macro lambda lists. \Seesection\DestructuringLambdaLists.

adj.

• not the same "The strings "FOO" and "foo" are different under equal but not under equalp."

n. (in a radix)

• a character that is among the possible digits (0 to 9, A to Z, and a to z) and that is defined to have an associated numeric weight as a digit in that radix. \Seesection\Digits.

n.

• 1. a non-negative integer indicating the number of objects an array can hold along one axis. If the array is a vector with a fill pointer, the fill pointer is ignored. "The second dimension of that array is 7."
• 2. an axis of an array. "This array has six dimensions."

n. (of a class C)

• an object whose class is C itself, rather than some subclass of C. "The function make-instance always returns a direct instance of the class which is (or is named by) its first argument."

n. (of a class C₁)

• a class C₂, such that C₁ is a direct superclass of C₂.

n. (of a class C₁)

• a class C₂ which was explicitly designated as a superclass of C₁ in the definition of C₁.

v.t.

• to withdraw the establishment of an object, a binding, an exit point, a tag, a handler, a restart, or an environment.

n. (of types)

• having no elements in common.

n.

• a macro character that has an associated table that specifies the function to be called for each character that is seen following the dispatching macro character. See make-dispatch-macro-character.

n.

• an array which has no storage of its own, but which is instead indirected to the storage of another array, called its target, at a specified offset, in such a way that any attempt to access the displaced array implicitly references the target array.

adj.

• not identical.

n. (in a defining form)

• a literal string which because of the context in which it appears (rather than because of some intrinsically observable aspect of the string) is taken as documentation. In some cases, the documentation string is saved in such a way that it can later be obtained by supplying either an object, or by supplying a name and a "kind" to the function documentation. "The body of code in a defmacro form can be preceded by a documentation string of kind function."

n.

• the standard character that is variously called "full stop," "period," or "dot" (.). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• a list which has a terminating atom that is not nil. (An atom by itself is not a dotted list, however.)

n.

• 1. a cons whose cdr is a non-list.
• 2. any cons, used to emphasize the use of the cons as a symmetric data pair.

n.

• an object of type double-float.

n.

• the standard character that is variously called "quotation mark" or "double quote" ("). \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n.

• a binding in a dynamic environment.

n.

• that part of an environment that contains bindings with dynamic extent. A dynamic environment contains, among other things: exit points established by unwind-protect, and bindings of dynamic variables, exit points established by catch, condition handlers, and restarts.

n.

• an extent whose duration is bounded by points of establishment and disestablishment within the execution of a particular form. See indefinite extent. "Dynamic variable bindings have dynamic extent."

n.

• indefinite scope along with dynamic extent.

n.

• a variable the binding for which is in the dynamic environment. See special.

n.

• a stream of type echo-stream.

n.

• the combination of applicable methods that are executed when a generic function is invoked with a particular sequence of arguments.

n.

• 1. (of a list) an object that is the car of one of the conses that comprise the list.
• 2. (of an array) an object that is stored in the array.
• 3. (of a sequence) an object that is an element of the list or array that is the sequence.
• 4. (of a type) an object that is a member of the set of objects designated by the type.
• 5. (of an input stream) a character or number (as appropriate to the element type of the stream) that is among the ordered series of objects that can be read from the stream (using read-char or read-byte, as appropriate to the stream).
• 6. (of an output stream) a character or number (as appropriate to the element type of the stream) that is among the ordered series of objects that has been or will be written to the stream (using write-char or write-byte, as appropriate to the stream).
• 7. (of a class) a generalized instance of the class.

n.

• 1. (of an array) the array element type of the array.
• 2. (of a stream) the stream element type of the stream.

n., Trad.

• a context-dependent unit of measure commonly used in typesetting, equal to the displayed width of of a letter "M" in the current font. (The letter "M" is traditionally chosen because it is typically represented by the widest glyph in the font, and other characters' widths are typically fractions of an em. In implementations providing non-Roman characters with wider characters than "M," it is permissible for another character to be the implementation-defined reference character for this measure, and for "M" to be only a fraction of an em wide.) In a fixed width font, a line with n characters is n em wide; in a variable width font, n em is the expected upper bound on the width of such a line.

n.

• the list containing no elements. See ().

n.

• the type that contains no elements, and that is a subtype of all types (including itself). See nil.

n.

• 1. the point in an input stream beyond which there is no further data. Whether or not there is such a point on an interactive stream is implementation-defined.
• 2. a situation that occurs upon an attempt to obtain data from an input stream that is at the end of file₁.

n.

• 1. a set of bindings. \Seesection\IntroToEnvs.
• 2. an environment object. "macroexpand takes an optional environment argument."

n.

• an object representing a set of lexical bindings, used in the processing of a form to provide meanings for names within that form. "macroexpand takes an optional environment argument." (The object nil when used as an environment object denotes the null lexical environment; the values of environment parameters to macro functions are objects of implementation-dependent nature which represent the environment₁ in which the corresponding macro form is to be expanded.) \Seesection\EnvObjs.

n.

• a parameter in a defining form f for which there is no corresponding argument; instead, this parameter receives as its value an environment object which corresponds to the lexical environment in which the defining form f appeared.

n.

• 1. (only in the phrase "is an error") a situation in which the semantics of a program are not specified, and in which the consequences are undefined.
• 2. a condition which represents an error situation. \Seesection\ErrorTerms.
• 3. an object of type error.

n.

• the output stream which is the value of the dynamic variable *error-output*.

n., adj.

• 1. n. a single escape or a multiple escape.
• 2. adj. single escape or multiple escape.

v.t.

• to build or bring into being a binding, a declaration, an exit point, a tag, a handler, a restart, or an environment. "let establishes lexical bindings."

v.t. (a form or an implicit progn)

• to execute the code represented by the form (or the series of forms making up the implicit progn) by applying the rules of evaluation, returning zero or more values.

n.

• a model whereby forms are executed, returning zero or more values. Such execution might be implemented directly in one step by an interpreter or in two steps by first compiling the form and then executing the compiled code; this choice is dependent both on context and the nature of the implementation, but in any case is not in general detectable by any program. The evaluation model is designed in such a way that a conforming implementation might legitimately have only a compiler and no interpreter, or vice versa. \Seesection\EvaluationModel.

n.

• a run-time environment in which macro expanders and code specified by eval-when to be evaluated are evaluated. All evaluations initiated by the compiler take place in the evaluation environment.

v.t. Trad. (code)

• to perform the imperative actions represented by the code.

n.

• the duration of time that compiled code is being executed.

n. (of a type)

• a set of pairwise disjoint types that form an exhaustive union.

n. (of a type)

• a set of subtypes of the type, whose union contains all elements of that type.

n.

• a point in a control form from which (e.g. block), through which (e.g. unwind-protect), or to which (e.g. tagbody) control and possibly values can be transferred both actively by using another control form and passively through the normal control and data flow of evaluation. "catch and block establish bindings for exit points to which throw and return-from, respectively, can transfer control and values; tagbody establishes a binding for an exit point with lexical extent to which go can transfer control; and unwind-protect establishes an exit point through which control might be transferred by operators such as throw, return-from, and go."

n.

• the act of transferring control (and possibly values) to a block by using return-from (or return).

n. (of a variable V in a form F)

• a reference to V that is directly apparent in the normal semantics of F; i.e. that does not expose any undocumented details of the macro expansion of the form itself. References to V exposed by expanding subforms of F are, however, considered to be explicit uses of V.

n.

• a character that is used in the textual notation for a float to separate the mantissa from the exponent. The characters defined as exponent markers in the standard readtable are shown in the below table. For more information, \seesection\CharacterSyntax. "The exponent marker `d' in `3.0d7' indicates that this number is to be represented as a double float."

v.t. (a symbol in a package)

• to add the symbol to the list of external symbols of the package.

adj. (of a symbol in a package)

• being an external symbol of the package.

n. (of an array)

• a generalized boolean that is conceptually (but not necessarily actually) associated with the array, representing whether the array is expressly adjustable. See also actual adjustability.

n. (of an array)

• the type which is the array element type implied by a type declaration for the array, or which is the requested array element type at its time of creation, prior to any selection of an upgraded array element type. (Common Lisp does not provide a way of detecting this type directly at run time, but an implementation is permitted to make assumptions about the array's contents and the operations which may be performed on the array when this type is noted during code analysis, even if those assumptions would not be valid in general for the upgraded array element type of the expressed array element type.)

n. (of a complex)

• the type which is implied as the complex part type by a type declaration for the complex, or which is the requested complex part type at its time of creation, prior to any selection of an upgraded complex part type. (Common Lisp does not provide a way of detecting this type directly at run time, but an implementation is permitted to make assumptions about the operations which may be performed on the complex when this type is noted during code analysis, even if those assumptions would not be valid in general for the upgraded complex part type of the expressed complex part type.)

n.

• 1. an object, often used to emphasize the use of the object to encode or represent information in a specialized format, such as program text. "The second expression in a let form is a list of bindings."
• 2. the textual notation used to notate an object in a source file. "The expression 'sample is equivalent to (quote sample)."

adj. (of an array)

• being actually adjustable by virtue of an explicit request for this characteristic having been made at the time of its creation. All arrays that are expressly adjustable are actually adjustable, but not necessarily vice versa.

n. a character of type extended-char: a character that is not a base character. \issue{CHARACTER-VS-CHAR:LESS-INCONSISTENT-SHORT}

n.

• a designator for a function; that is, an object that denotes a function and that is one of: a function name (denoting the function it names in the global environment), or a function (denoting itself). The consequences are undefined if a function name is used as an extended function designator but it does not have a global definition as a function, or if it is a symbol that has a global definition as a macro or a special form. See also function designator.

n.

• a list resembling an ordinary lambda list in form and purpose, but offering additional syntax or functionality not available in an ordinary lambda list. "defmacro uses extended lambda lists."

n.

• a facility in an implementation of Common Lisp that is not specified by this standard.

n.

• the interval of time during which a reference to an object, a binding, an exit point, a tag, a handler, a restart, or an environment is defined.

n.

• an object of implementation-dependent nature which determines one of possibly several implementation-dependent ways in which characters are encoded externally in a character file.

n.

• a designator for an external file format; that is, an object that denotes an external file format and that is one of: the symbol :default (denoting an implementation-dependent default external file format that can accomodate at least the base characters), some other object defined by the implementation to be an external file format designator (denoting an implementation-defined external file format), or some other object defined by the implementation to be an external file format (denoting itself).

n. (of a package)

• a symbol that is part of the `external interface' to the package and that are inherited|inherited₃ by any other package that uses the package. When using the Lisp reader, if a package prefix is used, the name of an external symbol is separated from the package name by a single package marker while the name of an internal symbol is separated from the package name by a double package marker; \seesection\SymbolTokens.

n.

• an object that can be used as a literal object in code to be processed by the file compiler.

n.

• the symbol nil, used to represent the failure of a predicate test.

adj. (of a function name)

• bound in the function namespace. (The names of macros and special operators are fbound, but the nature and type of the object which is their value is implementation-dependent. Further, defining a setf expander F does not cause the setf function (setf F) to become defined; as such, if there is a such a definition of a setf expander F, the function (setf F) can be fbound if and only if, by design or coincidence, a function binding for (setf F) has been independently established.) See functions fboundp and symbol-function.

\issue{SETF-FUNCTIONS-AGAIN:MINIMAL-CHANGES}

n.

• 1. an aspect or attribute of Common Lisp, of the implementation, or of the environment.
• 2. a symbol that names a feature₁. \Seesection\Features. "The :ansi-cl feature is present in all conforming implementations."

n.

• a boolean combination of features used by the #+ and #- reader macros in order to direct conditional reading of expressions by the Lisp reader. \Seesection\FeatureExpressions.

n.

• the list that is the value of *features*.

n.

• a named entry in a file system, having an implementation-defined nature.

n.

• any compiler which compiles source code contained in a file, producing a compiled file as output. The compile-file function is the only interface to such a compiler provided by Common Lisp, but there might be other, implementation-defined mechanisms for invoking the file compiler.

n. (in a stream)

• a non-negative integer that represents a position in the stream. Not all streams are able to represent the notion of file position; in the description of any operator which manipulates file positions, the behavior for streams that don't have this notion must be explicitly stated. For binary streams, the file position represents the number of preceding bytes in the stream. For character streams, the constraint is more relaxed: file positions must increase monotonically, the amount of the increase between file positions corresponding to any two successive characters in the stream is implementation-dependent.

n. (in a stream)

• a designator for a file position in that stream; that is, the symbol :start (denoting 0, the first file position in that stream), the symbol :end (denoting the last file position in that stream; i.e. the position following the last element of the stream), or a file position (denoting itself).

n.

• an object of type file-stream.

n.

• a facility which permits aggregations of data to be stored in named files on some medium that is external to the Lisp image and that therefore persists from session to session.

n.

• a handle, not necessarily ever directly represented as an object, that can be used to refer to a file in a file system. Pathnames and namestrings are two kinds of objects that substitute for filenames in Common Lisp.

\issue{PATHNAME-HOST-PARSING:RECOGNIZE-LOGICAL-HOST-NAMES}

n. (of a vector)

• an integer associated with a vector that represents the index above which no elements are active. (A fill pointer is a non-negative integer no larger than the total number of elements in the vector. Not all vectors have fill pointers.)

adj. (of a type)

• having a finite number of elements. "The type specifier (integer 0 5) denotes a finite type, but the type specifiers integer and (integer 0) do not."

n.

• an integer of type fixnum.

n.

• an object of type float.

adj. (of a reference to a binding)

• being a reference that reads₁ the value of the binding.

\issue{IGNORE-USE-TERMINOLOGY:VALUE-ONLY}

n.

• 1. any object meant to be evaluated.
• 2. a symbol, a compound form, or a self-evaluating object.
• 3. (for an operator, as in "operator form") a compound form having that operator as its first element. "A quote form is a constant form."

n., Trad.

• a parameter.

n., Trad.

• a parameter.

v.t. (a format control and format arguments)

• to perform output as if by format, using the format string and format arguments.

\issue{FORMAT-STRING-ARGUMENTS:SPECIFY}

n.

• an object which is used as data by functions such as format which interpret format controls.

\issue{FORMAT-STRING-ARGUMENTS:SPECIFY}

n.

• a format string, or a function that obeys the argument conventions for a function returned by the macro formatter. \Seesection\CompilingFormatStrings.

n.

• 1. a sequence of characters in a format string which is introduced by a tilde, and which is specially interpreted by code which processes format strings to mean that some special operation should be performed, possibly involving data supplied by the format arguments that accompanied the format string. See format. "In "~D base 10 = ~8R", the character sequences "~D" and "~8R" are format directives."
• 2. the conceptual category of all format directives₁ which use the same dispatch character. "Both "~3d" and "~3,'0D" are valid uses of the "~D" format directive."

n.

• a string which can contain both ordinary text and format directives, and which is used in conjunction with format arguments to describe how text output should be formatted by certain functions, such as format.

n.

• a declaration that is not a bound declaration. See declare.

adj.

• 1. (of an object yielded by a function) having been newly-allocated by that function. (The caller of a function that returns a fresh object may freely modify the object without fear that such modification will compromise the future correct behavior of that function.)
• 2. (of a binding for a name) newly-allocated; not shared with other bindings for that name.

n.

• a conceptual operation on a stream, implemented by the function fresh-line and by the format directive ~&, which advances the display position to the beginning of the next line (as if a newline had been typed, or the function terpri had been called) unless the stream is already known to be positioned at the beginning of a line. Unlike newline, freshline is not a character.

n. (of a function name)

• not fbound.

n.

• 1. an object representing code, which can be called with zero or more arguments, and which produces zero or more values.
• 2. an object of type function.

n. (of a function name)

• the symbol that would be used as the name of an implicit block which surrounds the body of a function having that function name. If the function name is a symbol, its function block name is the function name itself. If the function name is a list whose car is setf and whose cadr is a symbol, its function block name is the symbol that is the cadr of the function name. An implementation which supports additional kinds of function names must specify for each how the corresponding function block name is computed.

n., Trad. (of a symbol)

• the place which holds the definition of the global function binding, if any, named by that symbol, and which is accessed by symbol-function. See cell.

n.

• a designator for a function; that is, an object that denotes a function and that is one of: a symbol (denoting the function named by that symbol in the global environment), or a function (denoting itself). The consequences are undefined if a symbol is used as a function designator but it does not have a global definition as a function, or it has a global definition as a macro or a special form. See also extended function designator.

n.

• a form that is a list and that has a first element which is the name of a function to be called on arguments which are the result of evaluating subsequent elements of the function form.

n.

• 1. (in an environment) A symbol or a list (setf symbol) that is the name of a function in that environment.
• 2. A symbol or a list (setf symbol).

n.

• the process of extracting a functional value from a function name or a lambda expression. The evaluator performs functional evaluation implicitly when it encounters a function name or a lambda expression in the car of a compound form, or explicitly when it encounters a function special form. Neither a use of a symbol as a function designator nor a use of the function symbol-function to extract the functional value of a symbol is considered a functional evaluation.

n.

• 1. (of a function name N in an environment E) The value of the binding named N in the function namespace for environment E; that is, the contents of the function cell named N in environment E.
• 2. (of an fbound symbol S) the contents of the symbol's function cell; that is, the value of the binding named S in the function namespace of the global environment. (A name that is a macro name in the global environment or is a special operator might or might not be fbound. But if S is such a name and is fbound, the specific nature of its functional value is implementation-dependent; in particular, it might or might not be a function.)

n.

• implementation-dependent compilation beyond minimal compilation. Further compilation is permitted to take place at run time. "Block compilation and generation of machine-specific instructions are examples of further compilation."

adj. (of an array)

• having element type t, and consequently able to have any object as an element.

n.

• an object used as a truth value, where the symbol~nil represents false and all other objects represent true. See boolean.

n. (of a class)

• an object the class of which is either that class itself, or some subclass of that class. (Because of the correspondence between types and classes, the term "generalized instance of X" implies "object of type X" and in cases where X is a class (or class name) the reverse is also true. The former terminology emphasizes the view of X as a class while the latter emphasizes the view of X as a type specifier.)

n.

• a reference to a location storing an object as if to a variable. (Such a reference can be either to read or write the location.) \Seesection\GeneralizedReference. See also place.

n. (with a synonym stream symbol)

• 1. (to a stream) a synonym stream to the stream, or a composite stream which has as a target a generalized synonym stream to the stream.
• 2. (to a symbol) a synonym stream to the symbol, or a composite stream which has as a target a generalized synonym stream to the symbol.

n.

• a function whose behavior depends on the classes or identities of the arguments supplied to it and whose parts include, among other things, a set of methods, a lambda list, and a method combination type.

n.

• a lambda list that is used to describe data flow into a generic function. \Seesection\GFLambdaLists.

n. Trad.

• an uninterned symbol. See gensym.

n.

• a form that makes certain kinds of information about code globally available; that is, a proclaim form or a declaim form.

n.

• that part of an environment that contains bindings with indefinite scope and indefinite extent.

n.

• a dynamic variable or a constant variable.

n.

• a visual representation. "Graphic characters have associated glyphs."

v.

• to transfer control to a go point. See go.

n.

• one of possibly several exit points that are established by tagbody (or other abstractions, such as prog, which are built from tagbody).

n.

• the symbol or integer that, within the lexical scope of a tagbody form, names an exit point established by that tagbody form.

adj. (of a character)

• being a "printing" or "displayable" character that has a standard visual representation as a single glyph, such as A or * or =. Space is defined to be graphic. Of the standard characters, all but newline are graphic. See non-graphic.

v. (of a condition being signaled)

• to perform a non-local transfer of control, terminating the ongoing signaling of the condition.

n.

• a condition handler.

n.

• an object of type hash-table, which provides a mapping from keys to values.

n. (of a symbol)

• the package, if any, which is contents of the package cell of the symbol, and which dictates how the Lisp printer prints the symbol when it is not accessible in the current package. (Symbols which have nil in their package cell are said to have no home package, and also to be apparently uninterned.)

n.

• one of the stream variables in the below list, or some other (implementation-defined) stream variable that is defined by the implementation to be an I/O customization variable.

• *debug-io*
• *error-output*
• *query-io*
• *standard-input*
• *standard-output*
• *trace-output*

adj.

• the same under eq.

n.

• 1. a symbol used to identify or to distinguish names.
• 2. a string used the same way.

adj.

• not subject to change, either because no operator is provided which is capable of effecting such change or because some constraint exists which prohibits the use of an operator that might otherwise be capable of effecting such a change. Except as explicitly indicated otherwise, implementations are not required to detect attempts to modify immutable objects or cells; the consequences of attempting to make such modification are undefined. "Numbers are immutable."

n.

• a system, mechanism, or body of code that implements the semantics of Common Lisp.

n.

• a restriction imposed by an implementation.

adj.

• implementation-dependent, but required by this specification to be defined by each conforming implementation and to be documented by the corresponding implementor.

adj.

• describing a behavior or aspect of Common Lisp which has been deliberately left unspecified, that might be defined in some conforming implementations but not in others, and whose details may differ between implementations. A conforming implementation is encouraged (but not required) to document its treatment of each item in this specification which is marked implementation-dependent, although in some cases such documentation might simply identify the item as "undefined."

adj. used to identify or emphasize a behavior or aspect of Common Lisp which does not vary between conforming implementations.

n.

• a block introduced by a macro form rather than by an explicit block form.

n.

• compilation performed during evaluation.

n.

• an ordered set of adjacent forms appearing in another form, and defined by their context in that form to be executed as if within a progn.

n.

• an ordered set of adjacent forms and/or tags appearing in another form, and defined by their context in that form to be executed as if within a tagbody.

v.t. (a symbol into a package)

• to make the symbol be present in the package.

n.

• a list which is not a proper list: a circular list or a dotted list.

adj.

• not accessible.

n.

• an extent whose duration is unlimited. "Most Common Lisp objects have indefinite extent."

n.

• scope that is unlimited.

n.

• a property indicator.

n. (of a class C₁)

• an object of class C₂, where C₂ is a subclass of C₁. "An integer is an indirect instance of the class number."

v.t.

• 1. to receive or acquire a quality, trait, or characteristic; to gain access to a feature defined elsewhere.
• 2. (a class) to acquire the structure and behavior defined by a superclass.
• 3. (a package) to make symbols exported by another package accessible by using use-package.

n.

• the value of *print-pprint-dispatch* at the time the Lisp image is started.

\issue{KMP-COMMENTS-ON-SANDRA-COMMENTS:X3J13-MAR-92}

n.

• the value of *readtable* at the time the Lisp image is started.

\issue{WITH-STANDARD-IO-SYNTAX-READTABLE:X3J13-MAR-91}

n.

• a property list of initialization argument names and values used in the protocol for initializing and reinitializing instances of classes. \Seesection\ObjectCreationAndInit.

\issue{PLIST-DUPLICATES:ALLOW}

n.

• a form used to supply the initial value for a slot or variable. "The initialization form for a slot in a defclass form is introduced by the keyword :initform."

adj. (of a stream)

• supporting input operations (i.e. being a "data source"). An input stream might also be an output stream, in which case it is sometimes called a bidirectional stream. See input-stream-p.

n.

• 1. a direct instance.
• 2. a generalized instance.
• 3. an indirect instance.

n.

• an object of type integer, which represents a mathematical integer.

n.

• a stream on which it makes sense to perform interactive querying. \Seesection\InteractiveStreams.

v.t.

• 1. (a string in a package) to look up the string in the package, returning either a symbol with that name which was already accessible in the package or a newly created internal symbol of the package with that name.
• 2. Idiom. generally, to observe a protocol whereby objects which are equivalent or have equivalent names under some predicate defined by the protocol are mapped to a single canonical object.

n. (of a package)

• a symbol which is accessible in the package, but which is not an external symbol of the package.

n.

• time, represented as an integer number of internal time units. Absolute internal time is measured as an offset from an arbitrarily chosen, implementation-dependent base. \Seesection\InternalTime.

n.

• a unit of time equal to 1/n of a second, for some implementation-defined integer value of n. See internal-time-units-per-second.

adj. Trad.

• 1. (of a symbol) accessible₃ in any package.
• 2. (of a symbol in a specific package) present in that package.

n.

• a function that is not a compiled function. (It is possible for there to be a conforming implementation which has no interpreted functions, but a conforming program must not assume that all functions are compiled functions.)

n.

• an implementation that uses an execution strategy for interpreted functions that does not involve a one-time semantic analysis pre-pass, and instead uses "lazy" (and sometimes repetitious) semantic analysis of forms as they are encountered during execution.

n. (of type T)

• an ordered pair of objects that describe a subtype of T by delimiting an interval on the real number line. \Seesection\IntervalDesignators.

n., adj.

• 1. n. a possible constituent trait of a character which if present signifies that the character cannot ever appear in a token except under the control of a single escape character. For details, \seesection\ConstituentChars.
• 2. adj. (of a character) being a character that has syntax type constituent in the current readtable and that has the constituent trait invalid₁. \Seefigure\ConstituentTraitsOfStdChars.

n.

• a compound form whose operator is named in the below list, or a compound form that has an implementation-defined operator and that is defined by the implementation to be an iteration form.

\issue{DOTIMES-IGNORE:X3J13-MAR91}

• do
• do-external-symbols
• dotimes
• do*
• do-symbols
• loop
• do-all-symbols
• dolist

n.

• a variable V, the binding for which was created by an explicit use of V in an iteration form.

n.

• an object used for selection during retrieval. See association list, property list, and hash table. Also, \seesection\SequenceConcepts.

n.

• 1. a symbol the home package of which is the package keyword.
• 2. any symbol, usually but not necessarily in the package keyword, that is used as an identifying marker in keyword-style argument passing. See lambda.
• 3. Idiom. a lambda list keyword.

n.

• a parameter for which a corresponding keyword argument is optional. (There is no such thing as a required keyword argument.) If the argument is not supplied, a default value is used. See also supplied-p parameter.

\issue{PLIST-DUPLICATES:ALLOW}

n.

• two successive elements (a keyword and a value, respectively) of a property list.

n., Trad.

• a lambda form.

n.

• a list which can be used in place of a function name in certain contexts to denote a function by directly describing its behavior rather than indirectly by referring to the name of an established function; its name derives from the fact that its first element is the symbol lambda. See lambda.

n.

• a form that is a list and that has a first element which is a lambda expression representing a function to be called on arguments which are the result of evaluating subsequent elements of the lambda form.

n.

• a list that specifies a set of parameters (sometimes called lambda variables) and a protocol for receiving values for those parameters; that is, an ordinary lambda list, an extended lambda list, or a modified lambda list.

n.

• a symbol whose name begins with ampersand and that is specially recognized in a lambda list. Note that no standardized lambda list keyword is in the package keyword.

n.

• a formal parameter, used to emphasize the variable's relation to the lambda list that established it.

n.

• 1. an atom in a tree₁.
• 2. a terminal node of a tree₂.

n.

• additional one-second intervals of time that are occasionally inserted into the true calendar by official timekeepers as a correction similar to "leap years." All Common Lisp time representations ignore leap seconds; every day is assumed to be exactly 86400 seconds long.

n.

• the standard character "(", that is variously called "left parenthesis" or "open parenthesis" \Seefigure\StdCharsThree.

n. (of a sequence)

• the number of elements in the sequence. (Note that if the sequence is a vector with a fill pointer, its length is the same as the fill pointer even though the total allocated size of the vector might be larger.)

n.

• a binding in a lexical environment.

n.

• a function that, when invoked on arguments, executes the body of a lambda expression in the lexical environment that was captured at the time of the creation of the lexical closure, augmented by bindings of the function's parameters to the corresponding arguments.

n.

• that part of the environment that contains bindings whose names have lexical scope. A lexical environment contains, among other things: ordinary bindings of variable names to values, lexically established bindings of function names to functions, macros, symbol macros, blocks, tags, and local declarations (see declare).

n.

• scope that is limited to a spatial or textual region within the establishing form. "The names of parameters to a function normally are lexically scoped."

n.

• a variable the binding for which is in the lexical environment.

n.

• a running instantiation of a Common Lisp implementation. A Lisp image is characterized by a single address space in which any object can directly refer to any another in conformance with this specification, and by a single, common, global environment. (External operating systems sometimes call this a "core image," "fork," "incarnation," "job," or "process." Note however, that the issue of a "process" in such an operating system is technically orthogonal to the issue of a Lisp image being defined here. Depending on the operating system, a single "process" might have multiple Lisp images, and multiple "processes" might reside in a single Lisp image. Hence, it is the idea of a fully shared address space for direct reference among all objects which is the defining characteristic. Note, too, that two "processes" which have a communication area that permits the sharing of some but not all objects are considered to be distinct Lisp images.)

n., Trad.

• the procedure that prints the character representation of an object onto a stream. (This procedure is implemented by the function write.)

n., Trad.

• an endless loop that reads₂ a form, evaluates it, and prints (i.e. writes₂) the results. In many implementations, the default mode of interaction with Common Lisp during program development is through such a loop.

n., Trad.

• the procedure that parses character representations of objects from a stream, producing objects. (This procedure is implemented by the function read.)

n.

• 1. a chain of conses in which the car of each cons is an element of the list, and the cdr of each cons is either the next link in the chain or a terminating atom. See also proper list, dotted list, or circular list.
• 2. the type that is the union of null and cons.