Raymond Toy writes: CLtL1 stated that objects of type character had the three attributes 'code', 'bits', and 'font'. 'code' is the numerical value of the character (ASCII code). 'bits' are the modifier bits such as Shift, Control, and Meta (on a Lisp Machine Super and Hyper are also included). 'font' allowed a specific font to be associated with a character. CLtL2 noted that the X3J13 committee had voted to remove the attributes 'bits' and 'font' and replace them with "implementation-defined attributes." Harlequin has a document called the "Common Lisp HyperSpec" which is available at the URL http://www.harlequin.com/education/books/HyperSpec/. This document is an HTML version of the ANSI Common Lisp standard. (The HyperSpec was put together by the editor of the ANSI Common Lisp standard, Kent Pitman.) The concept of 'character' is discussed in chapter 13: http://www.harlequin.com/education/books/HyperSpec/Body/chap-13.html. The concept of character attributes is discussed in the subsection http://www.harlequin.com/education/books/HyperSpec/Body/sec_13-1-3.html. [Sorry to just jump into the middle of this conversation, but I thought this info might be useful.] Craig [10 year veteran of Lisp hacking. Zetalisp, Common Lisp, and ANSI Common Lisp in Symbolics' Genera (Lisp Machines), Franz Allegro (Unix), and Harlequin LispWorks (Unix and Win32)] -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Lanning Principal Engineer Logicon, Inc. a Northrop Grumman company E-Mail: Lanning(a)scra.org 5300 International Blvd. Voice: 843-760-3246 North Charleston, SC 29418 FAX: 843-760-3780 USA