Next: Character Attribute Functions, Previous: Introduction, Up: Character Attributes [Contents][Index]
As for Hemlock variables, character attributes have a user visible string name, but are referred to in Lisp code as a symbol. The string name, which is typically composed of capitalized words separated by spaces, is translated into a keyword by replacing all spaces with hyphens and interning this string in the keyword package. The attribute named Ada Syntax would thus become :ada-syntax.
Whenever a character attribute is defined, its name is entered in this string table (page string-tables), with the corresponding keyword as the value.