The ':white-space' keyword is an entry that is used in the *readtable* system variable that contains XLISP's data structures relating to the processing of characters from the user [or files] and read-macro expansions. The existance of the ':white-space' keyword means that the specified character may be skipped over. The system defines that 'tab', 'space', 'return' and 'line-feed' are ':white-space' characters.
;; define a function to look in a table
;; and print out any white-space characters
(defun look-at (table)
  (dotimes (ch 127)
    (prog ((entry (aref table ch)))
      (case entry
        (nil          nil)
        (:constituent nil)
        (:white-space (print ch))
        (t            nil))))
  (terpri))
(look-at *readtable*)  ; prints  9   - tab
                       ;         10  - newline
                       ;         12  - formfeed
                       ;         13  - return
                       ;         32  - space
Caution: If you experiment with
See the
:white-space
keyword in the