Re: [Gcl-devel] (ANSI) Added some string-related tests

[Paul F. Dietz]

Camm Maguire wrote:
> Hi Paul!  Thanks for this work!
>
> If you have the time, it would be helpful if you could summarize and
> categorize the issues as you discover them.  I can usually figure out
> what's wrong by playing with the test and reading up on the spec, but
> this takes some considerable time for each bug given my unfamiliarity
> with the language.  Even more time consuming, I usually go through
> several iterations of a fix as I reread the spec and notice details I
> had overlooked at first.  It might be more time efficient if someone
> like yourself who probably has the spec memorized could state the
> problems tersely.  Anyway, just if you have time.

I'll be happy to send a summary on these issues when I have time.


> I was looking at the CHAR problems.  I'm trying to wrap my mind around
> how one can setf to the output of char -- is char supposed to return a
> character or a pointer?

CHAR is an accessor, like AREF or CAR.

When used in a function position, the form (CHAR s i) returns the
character in position i of string s.

When used in a macro that expects a 'place', the macro uses the
setf expanded to generate a form that modifies the i-th character
of s.  Examples of these kinds of macros are SETF, PUSH, INCF,
and so on.

See section 5.1 of the spec for a description of these 'generalized
references'.

        Paul