> I also have a question about this line in the changelog: "Added support for > embedded strings and characters in SRFI-4 vector". this seems very neat! > But why doesn't it also work in the runtime u8vector constructor? Srfi-4 > vector literals are limited in that they can contain only other literals, > not arbitrary expressions so I tend to not use them. > > #;2> #u8(1 "hello") > #u8(1 104 101 108 108 111) > #;3> (u8vector 1 "hello") > Error: (u8vector-set!) bad argument type: "hello"
Literals like vectors contain <datum>s, which are not arbitrary expressions, this is just how the language is defined. In normal vectors allowing expressions would create ambiguities, as a vector can contain any value. For bytevectors one could argue that this situation does not exist, but I somehow find that it gets confusing. So consider the string-notation in literals a convience feature, nothing more. Generalizing this to the constructor procedure just invites type errors and hides mistakes, I think. felix
