Importing a symbol, not a function

From: marisal
Subject: Importing a symbol, not a function
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <5gpcqk$151$1@wrqnews.wrq.com>

I have a symbol foo and a function called foo as well, in the package 
"USER". I want to import the symbol foo in a package "my-package".
How do I do that? With (import user:foo) only the function is imported,
but if I say (print foo) gives an error.
Please, help.

Re: Importing a symbol, not a function Vassili Bykov
Re: Importing a symbol, not a function Rainer Joswig

From: Vassili Bykov
Subject: Re: Importing a symbol, not a function
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <33306250.29471851@nntp.hip.cam.org>

On 19 Mar 1997 18:55:16 GMT, marisal <·······@wrq.com> wrote:

>I have a symbol foo and a function called foo as well, in the package 
>"USER". I want to import the symbol foo in a package "my-package".
>How do I do that? With (import user:foo) only the function is imported,
>but if I say (print foo) gives an error.
>Please, help.

You forget the quote, it should be:

    (import 'user:foo)

IMPORT is a function so without a quote you import the value of FOO instead
of the symbol FOO itself. Why the function seemed to be imported must have
been a side effect of something you did before. (describe 'my-package:foo)
would show whether FOO came from "USER" or was interned in "my-package".

--Vassili

From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: Importing a symbol, not a function
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <joswig-ya023180002203970135220001@news.lavielle.com>

In article <············@wrqnews.wrq.com>, marisal <·······@wrq.com> wrote:

> I have a symbol foo and a function called foo as well, in the package 
> "USER". I want to import the symbol foo in a package "my-package".
> How do I do that? With (import user:foo)

Missing quote?

> only the function is imported,
> but if I say (print foo) gives an error.
> Please, help.


You can *only* deal with symbols using Common Lisp's packages.
There is nothing like exporting a function. Symbols can
have function values and/or ordinary values.
The following works for me.

(defpackage "BAR")

(in-package "BAR")

(defparameter *foo* 13)

*foo*

(in-package "CL-USER")

(import 'bar::*foo*)

*foo*

-- 
http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/