Re: Issue: COPY-SYMBOL-PRINT-NAME

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

    Date: Wed, 8 Mar 89 12:45 EST
    From: David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>

        Date: Wed, 8 Mar 89 12:36 EST
        From: Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
        I see no reason not to just say it returns a symbol whose name is EQ.

    There might be implementations that, like Multics Maclisp, have a special
    representation for symbol names rather than using an actual string.
    could make it impossible for
      (eq (symbol-name (copy-symbol x)) (symbol-name x))
    to be true.  I think string= is the correct predicate.

Ok, given this explanation, STRING= is fine by me.

        No one is supposed to ever side-effect such strings, so that's not
        an issue.
        Not saying the result is EQ just encourages paranoid implementors to
        copy the string unnecesarily, leading to a loss of space for no good
        reason.

    While I agree that the string should not be copied unnecessarily, I think
    there are legitimate implementation techniques that would copy the string
    necessarily.

Maybe this can be factored in as an implementation note.