22.6 External Formats and File Streams

The :external-format argument of open and related functions should be an ef-spec, where the name can be :default . The symbol :default is the default value.

If you know the format of the data when doing file I/O, you should definitely specify external-format explicitly, in the ef-spec syntax described in this section.

22.6.1 Complete external format ef-specs

22.6.2 Using complete external formats

22.6.3 Guessing the external format

22.6.4 External formats and stream-element-type

22.6.5 External formats and the LispWorks Editor

22.6.6 Byte Order Mark

LispWorks User Guide and Reference Manual - 21 Dec 2011