A little bit of file-position
When used with one argument, file-position returns an integer representing the stream’s file position:
* (defvar *s* (open "data.bin" :element-type '(unsigned-byte 8)) => *S* * (read-byte *s*) => 42 * (read-byte *s*) => 107 * (file-position *s*) => 2
When used with two arguments, file-position sets the stream position:
* (file-position *s* 1) => T * (read-byte *s*) => 107
When used this way, the position is often given as an integer, but the function actually accepts a designator. An integer position value represents itself, the keyword :start represents 0 (the first position in the stream), and the keyword :end represents the last position in the stream.
What would life be like without :start and :end? For :start, not too difficult; you could just use 0. But without :end you would need to use some other function, such as file-length, to correctly position the stream at the end.
