Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition
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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.
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