CLISP(1)

NAME
clisp - Common Lisp language interpreter and compiler

SYNOPSIS
clisp [ -h | --help ] [ --version ] [ --license ] [ -B lisplibdir ] [ -K linking-set ] [ -M memfile ] [ -m memsize ] [ -L language ] [ -N localedir ] [ -Edomain encoding ] [ -q | --quiet | --silent ] [ -w ] [ -I ] [ -a ] [ -p packagename ] [ -C ] [ -norc ] [ -i initfile ... ] [ -c [ -l ] lispfile [ -o outputfile ] ... ] [ -x expression ] [ lispfile [ argument ] ]

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, --help
    Displays a help message on how to use clisp.

--version
    Displays the clisp version number, as given by the function call (lisp-implementation-version).

--license
    Displays a summary of the licensing information, the GNU GPL.

-B lisplibdir
    Specifies the installation directory. This is the directory containing the linking sets and other data files. This option is normally not necessary, because the installation directory is already built-in in the clisp executable.

-K linking-set
    Specifies the linking set to be run. This is a directory containing at least a main executable and an initial memory image. Possible values are base, full. The default is base.

-M memfile
    Specifies the initial memory image. This must be a memory dump produced by the saveinitmem function. It may have been compressed using GNU gzip.

-m memsize
    Sets the amount of memory clisp tries to grab on startup. The amount may be given as nnnnnnn (measured in bytes), nnnnK or nnnnKB (measured in kilobytes) or nM or nMB (measured in megabytes). Default is 2 megabytes. The argument is constrained above 100 KB. -- This version of clisp is not likely to actually use the entire memsize since garbage collection will periodically reduce the amount of used memory. It is therefore common to specify 10 MB even if only 2 MB are going to be used.

-L language
    Specifies the language clisp uses to communicate with the user. This may be english, deutsch, francais, espanol. Other languages may be specified through the environment variable LANG, provided the corresponding message catalog is installed.

-N localedir
    Specifies the base directory of locale files. clisp will search its message catalogs in localedir/language/LC_MESSAGES/clisp.mo.

-Edomain encoding
    Specifies the encoding used for a given domain, overriding the default which depends on the environment variables LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG. domain can be file, affecting *default-file-encoding*, or pathname, affecting *pathname-encoding*, or terminal, affecting *terminal-encoding*, or foreign, affecting *foreign-encoding*, or misc, affecting *misc-encoding*.

-q, --quiet, --silent
    Quiet: clisp displays no banner at startup and no good-bye message when quitting.

-w  Wait for keypress after program termination.

-I  Be ILISP friendly. ILISP is an alternative Emacs interface to Common Lisp systems. With this option, clisp interacts in a way that ILISP can deal with. Currently the only effect of this is that unnecessary prompts are not suppressed. Furthermore, the GNU readline library treats Tab as a normal self-inserting character.

-a  ANSI CL compliant: Comply with the ANSI CL specification even on those issues where ANSI CL is broken. This option is provided for maximum portability of Lisp programs, and is not useful for actual everyday work. It sets the variable *package* to COMMON-LISP-USER, and the symbol macro *ansi* to t. See impnotes.html, section "Maximum ANSI CL compliance", for details.

-p packagename
    At startup the value of the variable *package* will be set to the package named packagename. The default is the package which was active when the image was saved, normally USER, or COMMON-LISP-USER if the option -a was specified.

-C  Compile when load: At startup the value of the variable *load-compiling* will be set to t. Code being loaded will then be compiled on the fly. This results in slower loading, but faster execution.

-norc
    Normally clisp loads a user run control (RC) file on startup (this happens after the -C option is processed). The file loaded is ${HOME}/.clisprc.lisp or ${HOME}/.clisprc.fas, whichever is newest. This option, -norc, prevents loading of the RC file.

-i initfile ...
    Specifies initialization files to be loaded at startup. These should be lisp files (source or compiled). Several -i options can be given; all the specified files will be loaded in order.

-c lispfile ...
    Compiles the specified lispfiles to bytecode (*.fas). 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 (*.lis) of the files being compiled will be produced. Useful only for debugging purposes. See the documentation of compile-file for details.

-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 double quotes, and double quotes and backslashes must be preceded by backslashes.

lispfile [argument ...]
    Loads and executes a lispfile. There will be no read-eval-print loop. Before lispfile is loaded, the variable *args* will be bound to a list of strings, representing the arguments. The first line of lispfile may start with #!, thus permitting clisp to be used as a script interpreter. If lispfile is -, the standard input is used instead of a file. This option must be the last one. No RC file will be executed.

REFERENCE
The language implemented mostly conforms to
          ANSI Common Lisp standard X3.226-1994
          http://www.x3.org/tc_home/j13sd4.htm
available online as the
          Common Lisp HyperSpec
          http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/
          ("CLHS" for short)
which supersedes the earlier specifications
          Guy L. Steele Jr.: Common Lisp - The Language.
          Digital Press. 2nd edition 1990, 1032 pages.
          http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/ai-repository/ai/html/cltl/cltl2.html
          ("CLtL2" for short)
and
          Guy L. Steele Jr.: Common Lisp - The Language.
          Digital Press. 1st edition 1984, 465 pages.
          ("CLtL1" 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.

arrow keys
    for editing and viewing the input history.

Tab key
    to complete the symbol's name you are just typing.

FILES

clisp
    startup script

lisp.run
    main executable

lispinit.mem
    initial memory image

config.lisp
    site-dependent configuration

*.lisp
    lisp source

*.fas
    lisp code, compiled by clisp

*.lib
    lisp source library information, generated and used by the clisp compiler

*.c C code, compiled from lisp source by clisp

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.

LC_CTYPE
    specifies the locale which determines the character set in use. The value can be of the form language or language_country or language_country.charset, where language is a two-letter ISO 639 language code (lower case), and country is a two-letter ISO 3166 country code (upper case). charset is an optional character set specification, and needs normally not be given because the character set can be inferred from the language and country.

LANG
    specifies the language clisp uses to communicate with the user, unless it is already specified through the environment variable CLISP_LANGUAGE or the -L option. It also specifies the locale determining the character set in use, unless already specified through the environment variable LC_CTYPE. The value may begin with a two-letter ISO 639 language code, for example en, de, fr.

HOME and USER
    are used for determining the value of the function user-homedir-pathname. (Unix implementation only.)

SHELL (Unix implementation only)
    is used to find the interactive command interpreter called by (shell).

TERM
    determines the screen size recognized by the pretty printer. This environment variable is also mandatory for the built-in screen editor.

SEE ALSO
impnotes.html, cmucl(1), xemacs(1).

BUGS

Not all extensions from CLtL2 are supported.

No on-line documentation beyond apropos and describe is available.

PROJECTS

Writing on-line documentation.

Enhance the compiler such that it can inline local functions.

Specify a portable set of window and graphics operations.

AUTHORS
Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> and Michael Stoll.