On 4/22/20 3:39 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>     Possibly alternative phrasing for:
>          A character argument and a string argument of length 1 are treated exactly the same way.
>     could be:
>          A character argument _ch_ is treated exactly the same as (string _ch_).
>
>
> That is shorter but not I think better.

I had an uncomfortable feeling that the former could be read as saying that #\X (a character argument)
was equivalent to "Y" (a string argument of length 1).  However, reading the paragraph as a whole
makes it ok, I think.

> It suggests that when a character is passed, a corresponding string is allocated, which need not be the case.

I think that "as-if" rule applies.  You might consider:

   A character argument _ch_ is treated as if it were (string _ch_).

However, the existing phrasing is probably fine.
--
	--Per Bothner
xxxxxx@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/