hash tables: print, read, print-readably

There was a recent discussion on ding(a)gnus.org about problems that recent versions of Gnus have with XEmacs. One of the issues was stated as XEmacs not having a "printed representation for hash tables". It turns out that that's not strictly true, but I can see where someone might think it's true. The main issue is that the default format for printing a hash table cannot be read back in. (setq myhash (makehash)) => #<hash-table :size 0/29 0x5ef> (puthash "a" "foo" myhash) => "foo" (prin1-to-string myhash) => "#<hash-table :size 1/29 :data (\"a\" \"foo\") 0x5ef>" (read-from-string (prin1-to-string myhash)) => Invalid read syntax: cannot read unreadable object. To get the right syntax you have to bind print-readably to t, as in (let ((print-readably t)) (prin1-to-string myhash)) => "#s(hash-table :size 1 :data (\"a\" \"foo\"))" (read-from-string (let ((print-readably t)) (prin1-to-string myhash))) => (#<hash-table :size 1/29 :data ("a" "foo") 0x636> . 40) This seems awkward. Can we change the default format for printing hash tables, or would that require a major version bump? If we're stuck with print-readably for the foreseeable future, it seems like the docstring for print et al should mention it. Also, while I was playing around with this on 21.5.33, I noticed the following oddity. Suppose I put the following text into a buffer: #s(hash-table :size 29 :data ("a" "foo")) If I then put point at the "#" and type M-: (read (current-buffer)) I get a hash table back, and it has the right contents, but it's size 59, not 29. That's a bug, I guess...? mike _______________________________________________ XEmacs-Beta mailing list XEmacs-Beta(a)xemacs.org http://lists.xemacs.org/mailman/listinfo/xemacs-beta