CLISP manual page

Name
Synopsis
Description
Options
Reference
Use
Files
Environment
See also
Bugs
Projects
Authors

Name

clisp - Common Lisp language interpreter and compiler

Synopsis

clisp [ -h ] [ -m memsize ] [ -M memfile ] [ -L language ] [ -q ] [ -I ] [ -i initfile ... ] [ -c [ -l ] lispfile [ -o outputfile ] ... ] [ -x expression ]

Description

Invokes the common lisp interpreter and compiler. Invoked without arguments, executes a read-eval-print loop, in which expressions are in turn read from standard input, evaluated by the lisp interpreter, and their results output to standard output. Invoked with -c, the specified lisp files are compiled to a bytecode that can be executed more efficiently.

Options

-h: Displays a help message on how to use clisp.
-m memsize: Sets the amount of memory clisp tries to grab on startup. The amount may be given as nnnnnnn (measured in bytes), nnnn K or nnnn KB (measured in kilobytes) or n M or n MB (measured in megabytes). Default is 2 megabytes. The argument is constrained between 100 KB and 16 MB. -- This version of clisp allocates memory dynamically. memsize is essentially ignored.
-M memfile: Specifies the initial memory image. This must be a memory dump produced by the saveinitmem function.
-L language: Specifies the language clisp uses to communicate with the user. This may be english, deutsch, francais.
-q: Quiet: clisp displays no banner at startup and no good-bye message when quitting.
-I: ILISP friendly: clisp interacts in a way that ILISP (a popular Emacs LISP interface) can deal with. Currently the only effect of this is that unnecessary prompts are not suppressed.
-i initfile ...: Specifies initialization files to be loaded at startup. These should be lisp files (source or compiled).
-c lispfile ...: Compiles the specified lispfiles to bytecode. The compiled files can then be loaded instead of the sources to gain efficiency.
-o outputfile: Specifies the output file or directory for the compilation of the last specified lispfile.
-l: A bytecode listing of the files being compiled will be produced. Useful only for debugging purposes.
-x expressions: Executes a series of arbitrary expressions instead of a read-eval-print loop. The values of the expressions will be output to standard output. Due to the argument processing done by the shell, the expressions must be enclosed in single quotes, and double quotes and backslashes must be preceded by backslashes.

Reference

The language implemented conforms to

Guy L. Steele Jr.: Common Lisp - The Language. Digital Press. 1st edition 1984, 465 pages. ("CLtL1" for short)

and to the older parts of

Guy L. Steele Jr.: Common Lisp - The Language. Digital Press. 2nd edition 1990, 1032 pages. ("CLtL2" for short)

Use

help: to get some on-line help.
(apropos name): lists the symbols relating to name.
(exit) or (quit) or (bye): to quit clisp.
EOF (Ctrl-D): to leave the current read-eval-print loop.

Files

lisp: main executable
lispinit.mem: initial memory image
config.lsp: site-dependent configuration
*.lsp: lisp source
*.fas: lisp code, compiled by clisp
*.lib: lisp source library information, generated and used by the clisp compiler

Environment

CLISP_LANGUAGE

specifies the language clisp uses to communicate with the user. The value may be english, deutsch, francais and defaults to english. The -L option can be used to override this environment variable.

Bugs

The function inspect is not implemented.
Only very few extensions from CLtL2 are supported.
No on-line documentation beyond apropos and describe is available.

Projects

Writing on-line documentation.
Building a foreign function interface (ability to call C code directly).
Write inspect.
Enhance the compiler such that it can inline local functions.
Specify a portable set of window and graphics operations.

Authors

Bruno Haible <haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de> and Michael Stoll.

CLISP manual page / Bruno Haible <haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Last modified: 1 January 1995.