2.1 The REDUCE Standard Character Set

The basic characters which are used to build REDUCE symbols are the following:

1. The 26 letters a through z

2. The 10 decimal digits 0 through 9

3. The special characters _ ! " $ % ’ ( ) * + , - . / : ; < > = { }⟨blank⟩

With the exception of strings and characters preceded by an exclamation mark, the case of characters is ignored: depending of the underlying LISP they will all be converted internally into lower case or upper case: ALPHA, Alpha and alpha represent the same symbol. Most implementations allow you to switch this conversion off. The operating instructions for a particular implementation should be consulted on this point. For portability, we shall limit ourselves to the standard character set in this exposition.