19 Reading and Printing Lisp Objects

Printing and reading are the operations of converting Lisp objects to textual form and vice versa. They use the printed representations and read syntax described in Lisp Data Types.

This chapter describes the Lisp functions for reading and printing. It also describes streams, which specify where to get the text (if reading) or where to put it (if printing).

• Streams Intro: Overview of streams, reading and printing.
• Input Streams: Various data types that can be used as input streams.
• Input Functions: Functions to read Lisp objects from text.
• Output Streams: Various data types that can be used as output streams.
• Output Functions: Functions to print Lisp objects as text.
• Output Variables: Variables that control what the printing functions do.