JAR@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Jonathan A Rees) (11/25/87)
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 13:14:07 est
From: R. Kent Dybvig <dyb at iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
...
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 87 19:28:38 +0100
From: Oliver Laumann <net%TUB.BITNET at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
To: scheme-request@mc.lcs.mit.edu
What is the exact difference between (write-char <char>) and
(display <char>)? "write-char" seems to be redundant. Is "display"
supposed to terminate its output by a space or newline or something
like this?
... Character objects are not guaranteed to be distinct
from other objects, although they are in some implementations. So, for
example, it is possible to represent them as a range of integers or as
unit-length strings. Since display will always choose to print integers
as integers and strings as strings, the procedure "write-char" is needed
to force a character so represented to be treated as a character.