From: Amon B. Seagull
Subject: coerce a character to a string
Date: Sat, 06 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <3oepfq$iv7@netnews.upenn.edu>

Does anyone know why

(coerce #\a 'string)

should return an error in Lucid Common Lisp?

Thanks,

From: Barry Margolin
Subject: Re: coerce a character to a string
Date: Sat, 06 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <3ogj6d$dkg@tools.near.net>

In article <··········@netnews.upenn.edu> ········@red.seas.upenn.edu (Amon B. Seagull) writes:
>Does anyone know why
>(coerce #\a 'string)
>should return an error in Lucid Common Lisp?

Because there's nothing in the language that requires such a conversion to
succeed, and Lucid didn't feel like adding it as an extension.

You should be able to get the result you want with:

(coerce '(#\a) 'string)

Common Lisp specifies that any sequence can be coerced to another sequence
type if the elements of the original sequence are all valid elements of the
target type.  So any sequence of characters may be coerced to a string.
-- 
Barry Margolin
BBN Planet Corporation, Cambridge, MA
······@bbnplanet.com