Issue: RETURN-VALUES-UNSPECIFIED (Version 4)

[Barry Margolin <barmar@Think.COM>]

    Date: 7 Oct 88 21:16 PDT
    From: masinter.pa@xerox.com

    Proposal (RETURN-VALUES-UNSPECIFIED:SPECIFY)
 
    Clarify that the return values for the listed constructs are as follows:
 
    CLOSE -- the stream argument.
    IN-PACKAGE -- the new package, i.e. the value of *PACKAGE* after the
    execution of IN-PACKAGE.
    RENAME-PACKAGE -- the renamed package.
    SET-SYNTAX-FROM-CHAR -- T
    LOCALLY -- the return values of the last form of its body, i.e. the body is
	    surrounded by an implicit PROGN.
 
    Cost to Implementors:
 
    Small.

    Benefits:
 
    This clarification will assist users in writing portable code.
 
Except for LOCALLY, I don't see the point of specifying the return
values of the above functions.  Yes, the cost to implementors is small,
but why bother in the first place?  I think they should be made
explicitly implementation defined, like the other functions that were
listed.

If others do prefer to specify explicit return values, I agree with the
particular choices (although for SET-SYNTAX-FROM-CHAR I don't see why it
shouldn't return one of the characters).

                                                barmar