Is there a function in Common Lisp that takes a string as an argument and returns a keyword?
Example: (keyword "foo") -> :foo
A:
(intern "foo") -> :foo
See the Strings section of the Common Lisp Cookbook for other string/symbol conversions and a detailed discussion of symbols and packages.
Jonathan Wright
2008-10-17 11:22:37
The name needs to be interned in the "KEYWORD" package to be a keyword. e.g., (intern "FOO" "KEYWORD")
Chris Jester-Young
2008-10-17 11:24:28
ah yes. The (intern "foo" "KEYWORD") works quite nicely. Thank you.
nathan
2008-10-17 11:30:30
In my answer, I've packaged it up into a neat little function, which you may enjoy. :-)
Chris Jester-Young
2008-10-17 11:33:39
+7
A:
Here's a make-keyword function which packages up keyword creation process (interning of a name into the KEYWORD package). :-)
(defun make-keyword (name) (values (intern name "KEYWORD")))
Chris Jester-Young
2008-10-17 11:31:29
+3
A:
The answers given while being roughly correct do not produce a correct solution to the question's example.
Consider:
CL-USER(4): (intern "foo" :keyword)
:|foo|
NIL
CL-USER(5): (eq * :foo)
NIL
Usually you want to apply STRING-UPCASE to the string before interning it, thus:
(defun make-keyword (name) (values (intern (string-upcase name) "KEYWORD")))
skypher
2009-02-17 08:52:24