visible hash tables

[Richard Mlynarik <MLY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>]

I have always thought that an extension to the #S macro
is the correct way to do this sort of thing.

Might I instead suggest
  #S(hash-table :test #'eq :initial-contents #)

Such an extension would also allow one to present *PRINT-ESCAPE*
pathnames along the lines of
  #S(pathname "FOO.EDU:>File-Server>barfmail.lisp")
Similarly
  #S(byte-specifier 69 259)
  #S(random-state ...)
and so forth.


In CLOSsage, I guess the way to do this would be have the reader call
a generic function whose methods are defined on either a class instance
or, somewhat less flexibly, `on' the prototype instance of a class.

(defmethod construct-instance-from-cruft-read-by-\#S
      ((class (eql (find-class 'pathname)))
       &rest initargs)
  (apply (lambda (name)
           (pathname name))
         initargs))

(defmethod construct-instance-from-cruft-read-by-\#S
      ((class structure-class)
       &rest initargs)
  (apply (secret-internal-constructor class) initargs))



I believe that this sort of approach was implemented in NIL
at some stage.  RMS' lisp machine code had a similar feature.

[Then again, one could always print
  "#.(let ((table (make-hash-table :test #'eql)))
       (dolist (x '((key1 . val1) ...))
         (setf (gethash table (car x)) (cdr x)))))"
Yum!]