Symbols can be displayed either with their package information attached or not. In Common LispWorks, symbols are displayed with the package name attached by default.
For example, suppose you have created a package
FOO
which includes a symbol named
bar
and a symbol named
baz
. Suppose further that you created a new package
FOO2
, which used the
FOO
package. This can be done as shown below:
(defpackage foo (:use "COMMON-LISP"))
(defpackage foo2 (:use "FOO" "COMMON-LISP"))
Note that in defining both packages, the
COMMON-LISP
package has also been used. It is good practice to use this package, to ensure that commonly-used symbols are available.
When creating packages which use other packages, exported symbols can be called without having to refer to the package name.
To clarify this, let us go back to our example.
Figure 3.2 Two example packages
We have two packages:
FOO
and
FOO2
.
FOO
contains 2 functions,
bar
and
baz
. Suppose that the function
bar
has been declared as exported, whereas the function
baz
is not.
When you are in the package
FOO2
, you can refer to
bar
without using the package name (because
FOO2
uses
FOO
and
bar
is exported), but you must still refer to the
FOO
package name for
baz
(because
baz
is not exported). Note also that when you are in any package other than
FOO
or
FOO2
, you can refer to
foo:bar
, but you must still refer to
foo::baz
.
Package names are usually displayed alongside symbols in a list. Having a package entry on every line can be unhelpful, especially if the majority of items listed are from the same package. To hide the package names for the symbols in the active window:
The Preferences dialog for the active window appears.