2.4.5 Double-Quote

Syntax: "<<text>>"

The double-quote is used to begin and end a string. When a double-quote is encountered, characters are read from the input stream and accumulated until another double-quote is encountered. If a single escape character is seen, the single escape character is discarded, the next character is accumulated, and accumulation continues. The accumulated characters up to but not including the matching double-quote are made into a simple string and returned.

It is implementation-dependent which attributes of the accumulated characters are removed in this process.

Examples of the use of the double-quote character are in Figure 2–18.

  "Foo"                      ;A string with three characters in it  
  ""                         ;An empty string                       
  "\"APL\\360?\" he cried."  ;A string with twenty characters       
  "|x| = |-x|"               ;A ten-character string                

          Figure 2–18: Examples of the use of double-quote         

Note that to place a single escape character or a double-quote into a string, such a character must be preceded by a single escape character. Note, too, that a multiple escape character need not be quoted by a single escape character within a string.

For information on how the Lisp printer prints strings, see Printing Strings.