> Suggestions welcome.

This is bug (?) of ECL:

> (find-package :||)
In function ROW-MAJOR-AREF, the value of index is
        0
which is not of expected type (INTEGER 0 0)
Broken at EVAL.Available restarts:
1. (USE-VALUE) Supply a new value of type (INTEGER 0 0).
Broken at FIND-PACKAGE.
>>


Fast solution:

--- swank.lisp	Wed Sep 19 14:12:08 2007
+++ swank.lisp	Sat Oct 20 11:19:52 2007
@@ -1606,16 +1606,17 @@
 (defun parse-package (string)
   "Find the package named STRING.
 Return the package or nil."
-  (multiple-value-bind (name pos)
-      (if (zerop (length string))
-          (values :|| 0)
-          (let ((*package* *swank-io-package*))
-            (ignore-errors (read-from-string string))))
-    (and name
-         (or (symbolp name)
-             (stringp name))
-         (= (length string) pos)
-         (find-package name))))
+  (when string
+    (multiple-value-bind (name pos)
+        (if (zerop (length string))
+            (values :|| 0)
+            (let ((*package* *swank-io-package*))
+              (ignore-errors (read-from-string string))))
+      (and name
+           (or (symbolp name)
+               (stringp name))
+           (= (length string) pos)
+           (find-package name)))))

 (defun unparse-name (string)
   "Print the name STRING according to the current printer settings."


-- 
WBR, Yaroslav Kavenchuk.