Re: long-strings

[bill@cambridge.apple.com (Bill St. Clair)]

At 18:48 11/26/92 -0800, Gilles Serasset wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I wan't to affect a variable to a long string:
>
>(setq foo "this is a very very very very ... long string")
>
>When the string is longer than the fred window, I'd like to have some kind
>of mecanism analogous to the <tilda>newline format directive (i.e. ignore
>newline character and folowing white space):
>
>(setq foo "this is a very very very very very very very <tilda>
>           very very very very very very very very very <tilda>
>           very very very long string")
>
>This is more readable.
>
>Am I obliged to use:
>
>(setq foo (format nil "..."))
>
>or is there another way ?

I know of no other way, though you can use "#." to make the consing
of the string happen at read time instead of at run time:

(setq foo #.(format nil "..."))