Re: Wow, Lisp Reader !!

Wow!! You guys have been wonderful and amazing with all your suggestions. I see that I have been too limited in my approaches. 

I’m really glad I spoke up. Even after 30 years of Lisp experience there is still so much to learn. Pascal, I admire the code you sent along for parsing angles!

Now here’s the next challenge - can you do a Vulcan mind meld on the user, from the reader, to ascertain Right Ascension from Declination? Hours are stated as 1/15 of Degrees, so 12 hours is the same as 180 degrees. But they appear the same with sexigisimal syntax, 12:00 versus 180:00.



> On May 24, 2026, at 07:40, Tim Bradshaw <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> (defvar *rt* (copy-readtable nil))
> 
> (set-macro-character
> #\'
> (get-macro-character #\' *readtable*)
> t *rt*)
> 
> Now
> 
> ? (setf *readtable* *rt*)
> #<readtable 8170521CF3>
> 
> ? 'foo'bar'bang
> foo\'bar\'bang
> 
> Same for the others.  You just need to make the read-macros be nonterminating.
>