A.3 Mapping summary

The main points of the mapping from IDL to Common Lisp are as follows:

• Primitive data types are mapped to corresponding primitive data types in Lisp.
• Struct and union are mapped to classes. Each member of the struct or union can be accessed using a regular syntax.
• Arrays map to arrays.
• Sequences can map either to lists or to vectors; that is, sequences map to sequences.
• Exceptions are mapped to conditions.
• Interfaces are mapped to classes, and interfaces that inherit map to classes that inherit.
• Operations on interfaces map to methods on a generic function. This generic function discriminates only on its first argument, which is then interpreted as the receiver of the operation.
• The module in which an IDL entity is declared is mapped to the package name of the corresponding symbol. The name of the symbol is formed from the rest of the scope of the module.