6.5 Symbols

Builtin Class: <symbol>

A class for symbols.

In Gauche, all symbols are interned, i.e. two symbols with the same print name are always eq?.

Reader Syntax: |name|

Denotes a symbol that has weird name, i.e. the name including the characters which is not allowed in the R5RS symbol syntax. If the interpreter is running in case-insensitive mode, this syntax can be used to include uppercase characters in a symbol (See section 2.3 Case-sensitivity).

The syntax is taken from CommonLisp. Some other Scheme implementation use it as well.

Function: symbol? obj

[R5RS] Returns true if and only if obj is a symbol.

(symbol? 'abc) => #t (symbol? 0) => #f (symbol? 'i) => #t (symbol? '-i) => #f (symbol? '|-i|) => #t

Function: symbol->string symbol

[R5RS] Returns the name of symbol in a string. Returned string is immutable.

(symbol->string 'foo) => foo

Function: string->symbol string

[R5RS] Returns a symbol whose name is a string string. String may contain weird characters.

(string->symbol "a") => a (string->symbol "A") => A (string->symbol "weird symbol name" => |weird symbol name|

Function: gensym &optional prefix