in cl, you can use defsetf to almost do the same. as a matter of fact, taking a cue from arc, you can write a macro like: (defmacro deftable (name) `(pro

in cl, you can use defsetf to almost do the same. as a matter of fact, taking a cue from arc, you can write a macro like: (defmacro deftable (name) `(progn (defparameter ,name (make-hash-table)) (defun ,name (k) (gethash k ,name)) (defsetf ,name (k) (v) `(setf (gethash ,k ,',name) ,v)))) now you can do: (deftable client), which creates the hashtable, and then (client 'phone) will retrieve the value, (setf (client 'phone) '4444444) will set the value.