Re: Issue: READ-CASE-SENSITIVITY (Version 1)

[Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89  12:25:55 CST
    From: David N Gray <Gray@DSG.csc.ti.com>

    ... Suppose ... it FUNCALLed a function contained in the read table ...
    ... (COPY-READTABLE *READTABLE* NIL :SYMBOL-CHAR-TRANSLATION ...) ...

I would support such a proposal.

However, I would prefer to see CHARACTER spelled out. This won't be used
often enough to justify abbreviation.  Also, I'm not sure that the `SYMBOL'
part of the name is warranted or even a good idea. For example, this
option might control whether you had to write #\Control-\a or could get
away with #\Control-a. Obviously, that's a matter to be decided by the
Characters committee, but if we choose an overly specific name, we'll make
it harder for them to explain.  Symbolics has used the function name
SET-CHARACTER-TRANSLATION for a while and to my knowledge no one has 
complained that it did not affect (for example) strings. As such, I'd prefer
 (COPY-READTABLE *READTABLE* NIL :CHARACTER-TRANSLATION ...)
Providing no way to modify a readtable's character translation function
would avoid the problem of people modifying the standard readtable, but
it would probably also be a nuisance in other situations. My vote would be
for adding a setf-able function READTABLE-CHARACTER-TRANSLATION as well.

Hope this info is helpful.