Chapter 9. Strings

The ECL implementation of strings is ANSI Common-Lisp compliant. There are basically four string types as shown in Table 9.1. If Unicode support is disabled, character and base-character are the same type and the last two string types are equivalent to the first two.

Table 9.1. Common Lisp string types

AbbreviationExpanded typeRemarks
string(array character (*))8 or 32 bits per character, adjustable.
simple-string(simple-array character (*))8 or 32 bits per character, not adjustable nor displaced.
base-string(array base-char (*))8 bits per character, adjustable.
simple-base-string(simple-array base-char (*))8 bits per character, not adjustable nor displaced.

Important

Currently, strings with unicode characters cannot be printed readably.