11 The Built-In Classes

Simple Objects

Characters

<character> [Sealed Class]

Superclasses:

<object>

Init-keywords:

None.

Description:

The class of characters. All characters are instances of <character>.

Operations:

The class <character> provides the following operations:

Methods on <character> (continued)

Function		Description	Page
<		Returns true if its first operand is less than its second operand.	256
as-uppercase		Coerces an object to uppercase.	275
as-lowercase		Coerces an object to lowercase.	276
as		Coerces an object to a type.	273

Symbols

<symbol> [Sealed Class]

Superclasses:

<object>

Init-keywords:

None.

Description:

The <symbol> class provides a built-in, non-case-sensitive dictionary that associates a string with a unique immutable object that can be compared with == (which should be faster than calling a string-comparison routine). This dictionary is accessed through the as function: as(<symbol>, string) and as(<string>, symbol). Any string can be used.

Operations:

The class <symbol> provides the following operations:

Methods on <symbol> (continued)

Function		Description	Page
as		Coerces an object to a type.	273

Booleans

<boolean> [Sealed Class]

Superclasses:

<object>

Init-keywords:

None.

Operations:

None.

Description:

The class of boolean values. The literal constants #t and #f are general instances of <boolean>. Note that for the purposes of conditional expressions, all objects besides #f count as true. (This does not imply any other objects are instances of <boolean>.)

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