Many allowed combinations of option and symbol type either make no sense or have no effect at all. The formatting process is divided into two stages: primary formatting and end formatting. The purpose of primary formatting is to convert the internal form of a symbol value to a character-based form. The end formatting is then applied to this intermediate form. The following sections describe the formatting process for each kind of symbol and in which of the two stages of conversion the various options are applied.
Primary Formatting of System Symbols Primary Formatting of Standard Symbols Primary Formatting of Program Symbols Primary Formatting of Text Symbols End Formatting