Re: Why isn't the string returned by symbol-name read-only?

[Davis Herring]

> That returns in an error when you try to evaluate it. The object
> returned by (symbol-name 'car) must have some read-only bit set.
>
> Why isn't that bit set for *all* symbol names?

It's set for that string not because `car' is too important to be changed,
but because it was created before Emacs was dumped.  (Of course, it is
created that early because it is important.)  Making such strings
read-only saves the time in checking whether they might need
garbage-collection later.  So it's purely an optimization; it's not meant
to protect anything.

Davis

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