This probably seems like a trivial question, but what is a "literal".
The term seems to be used numerous times throughout Practical Common
Lisp. Although it reads naturally throughout and has not held me up, I
am unsure what the precise definition of a literal is, in Common Lisp.
Any help would be great. Thanks.
dstein64 <········@gmail.com> writes:
> This probably seems like a trivial question, but what is a "literal".
literal adj. (of an object) referenced directly in a program rather
than being computed by the program; that is, appearing as data in a
quote form, or, if the object is a self-evaluating object, appearing
as unquoted data. ``In the form (cons "one" '("two")), the expressions
"one", ("two"), and "two" are literal objects.''
http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/26_glo_l.htm#literal
> The term seems to be used numerous times throughout Practical Common
> Lisp. Although it reads naturally throughout and has not held me up, I
> am unsure what the precise definition of a literal is, in Common Lisp.
> Any help would be great. Thanks.
You should browse the glossary of CLHS in general. It has a lot of
terminology that is used not only in the standard but in the Lisp
community generally.
http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/
Part of my goal in having such a large glossary in that document (it's
about 60 pages in hardcopy, if I recall) was to help people speak in
standardized language among each other, since I observed that people
around the lab where I worked and learned Lisp had a large vocabulary
of well-known terms (even if some had several meanings or senses) and
that knowing these words helped make conversations more crisp.
dstein64 <········@gmail.com> writes:
> This probably seems like a trivial question, but what is a "literal".
> The term seems to be used numerous times throughout Practical Common
> Lisp. Although it reads naturally throughout and has not held me up, I
> am unsure what the precise definition of a literal is, in Common Lisp.
> Any help would be great. Thanks.
http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/26_glo_l.htm#literal
--
http://jensteich.de
dstein64 wrote:
> This probably seems like a trivial question, but what is a "literal".
> The term seems to be used numerous times throughout Practical Common
> Lisp. Although it reads naturally throughout and has not held me up, I
> am unsure what the precise definition of a literal is, in Common Lisp.
> Any help would be great. Thanks.
Check out the entry for "literal" in the HyperSpec glossary at
http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/26_a.htm
Pascal
--
1st European Lisp Symposium (ELS'08)
http://prog.vub.ac.be/~pcostanza/els08/
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
d> This probably seems like a trivial question, but what is a "literal".
"literal" means "in letters". that is, representation of object written in
letters. for example, "qwe" is a string literal.
this is contrasted with objects computed by a program.