Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition

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# 2.2. Characters

Characters are represented as data objects of type `character`.

There are two subtypes of interest, called `standard-char` and `string-char`.

X3J13 voted in March 1989 (CHARACTER-PROPOSAL) to remove the type `string-char`.

A character object can be notated by writing `#\` followed by the character itself. For example, `#\g` means the character object for a lowercase g. This works well enough for printing characters. Non-printing characters have names, and can be notated by writing `#\` and then the name; for example, `#\Space` (or `#\SPACE` or `#\space` or `#\sPaCE`) means the space character. The syntax for character names after `#\` is the same as that for symbols. However, only character names that are known to the particular implementation may be used.

- Standard Characters
- Line Divisions
- Non-standard Characters
- Character Attributes
- String Characters