Why is #' (sharp-quote) notation unnecessary in CLISP?

Question

I\'m learning Lisp from the book \'Practical Common Lisp\'. At one point, I\'m supposed to enter the following bit of code:

[1] (remove-if-not #\'evenp \'(1          


        

Answer 1

Sharp-quote and quote do not have the same behaviour in the general case:

(defun test () 'red)

(flet ((test () 'green))
  (list (funcall 'test)
        (funcall #'test))) => (red green)

Calling a quoted symbol will use the function value of the quoted symbol (ie, the result of symbol-function). Calling a sharp-quoted symbol will use the value established by the lexical binding, if any, of the symbol. In the admittedly common case that there is no lexical binding the behaviour will be the same. That's what you are seeing.

You should get into the habit of using sharp-quote. Ignoring function bindings is probably not what you want, and may be confusing to anybody trying to understand your code.