April 13, 2026 implementation meeting links

[Paolo Amoroso]

The links we shared in the April 13, 2026 implementation meeting:

• Building a file that exports on loading

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Paolo Amoroso | Blog | Mastodon

[Matt Heffron]

The way to handle export symbols on loading a file could be done using the string names of the symbols in the :EXPORT of DEFPACKAGE. That’s a bit awkward. The CLtL2 allows (and, apparently, common usage is) using uninterned symbols instead of strings. This was added to Medley in PR #1822 .

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[Herb Jellinek]

You can also use symbols in the keyword package, right?  That avoids potential confusion that might come with using a string name in the wrong case, for instance.  And it saves one keystroke.

            Herb

[Herb Jellinek]

Nope, that turns out not to be correct.

            Herb

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[Herb Jellinek]

Hmm, maybe keywords do work after all.  I got a mysterious error message when defining the package earlier - mysterious because Medley couldn't display the message due to a package problem.

But Medley wrote and loaded the attached file correctly in my sysout.

@matt or @paolo, care to see if you can load the attached file successfully?

            Herb

[Matt Heffron]

That looks like it ought to work as you want…however, the keyword symbols will clutter up the KEYWORD package, while uninterned symbols don’t impact any package.

Using uninterned symbols appears to be the Common Lisp community convention, at least in the comparatively small number of such source modules I’ve looked at.

 

Matt

[Paolo Amoroso]

I get an error when loading the attached SINGLEPKG file:

4_ (LOAD 'SINGLEPKG)

{DSK}<home>paolo>il>SINGLEPKG.;1
In RESOLVE-EXPORT-MISSING:
<Condition XCL:EXPORT-MISSING @ 121Q,155770Q>
(problems trying to report it!)

[Matt Heffron]

I hadn't tried to load it! AND, I tried just reading the DEFPACKAGE source in a plain text editor, and misread it.

The reason that using KEYWORD symbols fails is that it uses the actual symbol provided, unless it has no "home package" (i.e., is uninterned).

I just looked in the CLtL2, and the changes that I made to DEFPACKAGE don't quite match the stated behavior. I could modify it to match.

I still stand by my other statements:

[Herb Jellinek]

A quick experiment I did leads me to think that keywords in the :EXPORT clause are ignored.

Using uninterned symbols works - see attached.  As for cluttering up the KEYWORD package, I don't think that's a real concern since we're talking about a small number of symbols.  If I ran some kind of keyword GENSYM in a loop, then maybe?  But that's not what's going on here.

            Herb

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