Symbol Class

A Symbol is simply a name for something -- eg. the name of a variable, function or class. Most computer languages don't allow the program to manipulate symbols -- Lisp is slightly different in that functions and names of functions are valid data structures which can be manipulated within the language much as Strings or Integers can be.

Symbol Creation

The following creates a Symbol:

    Fred

Similarly, you can convert a String to a Symbol as follows:

    ("Hello".symbol)

Symbol Properties

None

Symbol Methods

length

Return the length of the symbol.

Arguments: none

Return type: Integer

string

Get a string representation of the symbol.

Arguments: none

Return type: string

==

Test for equality of symbols. If the symbols are the same, the Symbol true is returned, otherwise the empty List () is returned.

Arguments:

Return type: Symbol true or the empty List ()