4.1 Creating Format Tables

In order to use custom format strings, you first need to create a so-called format table. A format table stores mappings between format directives (represented by their directive characters) and their intended meaning. In essence, a format table is very similar to a readtable: it describes how FoCus is to interpret your custom format strings in order to translate them into standard ones. Creating a format table is done by calling the function make-format-table.

Function: make-format-table &optional (INITIALLY :standard)

Create and return a new format table.

The optional argument INITIALLY lets you decide what you want the table to look like when it’s created. A value of :standard creates a format table behaving exactly like standard format. :standard-downcase and :standard-upcase do the same, except that when applicable, only the downcase (respectively upcase) directive characters are added (See also Casing). Finally, a :blank format table does not contain any directive at all.