colon a special character?

[Nic Ferrier <nferrier at tf1 dot tapsellferrier dot co dot uk>]

'scuse my ignorance: is the colon a special symbol character?

I'm just playing with some template stuff:

(define (output stream element)
  (if (not (null? element))
      (cond
      
       ((or (list? element) (pair? element))
	(let ((val (car element)))
	  (output stream val)
	  (output stream (cdr element))))
       
       ((procedure? element)
	(let ((val (apply element '())))
	  (if (and (not (null? val))
		   ;; This test is for the 'void' value
		   (not (equal? val (values))))
	      (begin
		(output stream val)
		(output stream element)))))
       
       (else
	(display element)))))


;; An example use of the above.
(let* ((output-stream #!null)
       (parameter-list  '("param1" "value1" "param2" "value3"))
       (element
	   `( some text here " " symbol-with-colon: " "
                more-symbols)))
  (output output-stream element))


As you can see the proc gets stuck on the symbol with the colon at the
end of it. But there doesn't seem to be a reason for it, if you take
the colon off the proc runs fine.

I'm using kawa-1.6.97.


Nic Ferrier