with-output-to-string query

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>]

    It seems clear to me that no one intended WITH-OUTPUT-TO-STRING to throw away
    characters if given a non-adjustable string to fill.  Since it can't return
    a value to say whether it filled the string, it should signal an error.  I
    think this is just looseness in the manual, not a real language issue.  If
    someone else disagrees they should speak up!

I agree that it would be preferable in this case to signal an error --
as I said in my earlier note, it is rather treacherous to just discard
charaters without warning.  However, the curent text of the manual seems
to say more or less clearly (though by indirection thropugh Vector-Push)
that no error is signalled in this case, so to "clarify" the manual as
Moon suggests is really a change, though one in a corner so obscure that
it wouldn't bother people too much.  Perhaps the best resolution is for
now to say that "it is an error" to overflow the string being written,
and to change this to "signals an error" in Common Lisp 86 (or
whenever).

-- Scott