3.2.5 Filenames

Filenames are actually just character strings. For convenience, filename prompts do not require the string to be surrounded with double quotes. If, for some exceptional reason, a filename contains an embedded space character, then the name must be surrounded with double quotes.

One consequence of this convenience is that filename prompts do not evaluate the response. For example, the sequence

 > (define fn "valve.ps")

 fn

 > hc fn

will end up writing a picture file with the name fn, not valve.ps. Since the filename prompt did not evaluate the response, fn did not get a chance to evaluate "valve.ps" as it would for most other prompts.