Re: Why don't let bound values die?

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I think I still do not know exactly what an uninterned symbol is, but
>> I guess it is something that can not be looked up, just somehow
>> accessed directly. But it still has a name and I wonder why.
>
> Fundamentally symbols are just special kinds of immutable strings.
> Obarrays then are special kinds of hash-tables which only map strings
> to symbols (whose name has to be the specified string).
>
> A symbol may be placed in only one obarray

s/only/at most/

> at any given time (because of details of the way the
> obarray-hash-tables are implemented, where the linked list slots of
> each hash-bucket are actually stored directly in the symbol
> themselves).

Uninterned symbols are not in any obarray.

-- 
David Kastrup