Re: dumping weird objects to compiled files

[cperdue@Sun.COM (Cris Perdue)]

Hi Don!

I'm working on a proposal on this exact issue, i.e. what Common
Lisp is supposed to do about (quoted) constants in compiled files.
There are big holes in the definition of Common Lisp today
concerning compilation, and this is one of them.

To answer one of your questions, no you definitely cannot
expect your constants to be PRINTed into compiled files.  Most
implementations use some binary representation of data.

There is interest in supporting user-defined types (structures
and classes) with user-definable dumpers, but it's just too much
work for me to personally try to address that.  Hopefully some
good facility will get defined.

There is also interest in something comparable to #, that is not
a readmacro, so you can sensibly generate them in programs and
at least one proposal for that.

You can mail to me for more information.

				-Cris