20.1.1 Coercion of Streams to Pathnames

A stream associated with a file is either a file stream or a synonym stream whose target is a stream associated with a file. Such streams can be used as pathname designators.

Normally, when a stream associated with a file is used as a pathname designator, it denotes the pathname used to open the file; this may be, but is not required to be, the actual name of the file.

Some functions, such as truename and delete-file, coerce streams to pathnames in a different way that involves referring to the actual file that is open, which might or might not be the file whose name was opened originally. Such special situations are always notated specifically and are not the default.