ECL(1) General Commands Manual ECL(1)NAME
ecl - Embeddable Common LISP
SYNOPSIS
ecl [-dir dir] [-load file] [-eval expr]
[-compile file
[-o ofile] [-c [cfile]] [-h [hfile]] [-data [datafile]] [-s] [-q]]
DESCRIPTION
ECL stands for Embeddable Common-Lisp. The ECL project is an effort to modernize Giuseppe Attardi's ECL environment to produce an imple-
mentation of the Common-Lisp language which complies to the ANSI X3J13 definition of the language.
The current ECL implementation features:
o A bytecodes compiler and interpreter.
o A translator to C.
o An interface to foreign functions.
o A dynamic loader.
o The possibility to build standalone executables.
o The Common-Lisp Object System (CLOS).
o Conditions and restarts for handling errors.
o Sockets as ordinary streams.
o The Gnu Multiprecision library for fast bignum operations.
o A simple conservative mark & sweep garbage collector.
o The Boehm-Weiser garbage collector.
ecl without any argument gives you the interactive lisp.
OPTIONS -shell file
Executes the given file and exits, without providing a read-eval-print loop. If you want to use lisp as a scripting language,
you can write #!${exec_prefix}/bin/ecl -shell on the first line of the file to be executed, and then ECL will be automatically
invoked.
-norc Do not try to load the file ~/.eclrc at startup.
-dir Use dir as system directory.
-load file
Loads file before entering the read-eval-print loop.
-eval expr
Evaluates expr before entering the read-eval-print loop.
-compile file
Translates file to C and invokes the local C compiler to produce a shared library with .fas as extension per default.
-o ofile When compiling file name the resulting shared library ofile.
-c cfile When compiling name the intermediary C file cfile and do not delete it afterwards.
-h hfile When compiling name the intermediary C header hfile and do not delete it afterwards.
-data [datafile]
Dumps compiler data into datafile or, if not supplied, into a file named after the source file, but with .data as extension.
-s Produce a linkable object file. It cannot be loaded with load, but it can be used to build libraries or standalone executable
programs.
-q Produce less notes when compiling.
The options -load, -shell, and -eval may appear any number of times, and they are combined and processed from left to right.
AUTHORS
The original version was developed by Giuseppe Attardi starting from the Kyoto Common Lisp implementation by Taiichi Yuasa and Masami
Hagiya. The current maintainer of ECL is Juan Jose Garcia Ripoll, who can be reached at the ECL mailing list.
FILES
~/.ecl, ~/.eclrc
Default initialization files loaded at startup unless the option -norc is provided. (if they exist).
SEE ALSO
ANSI Common Lisp standard X3.226-1994
The Common Lisp HyperSpec
BUGS
Probably some. Report them!
4th Berkeley Distribution 03/10/03 ECL(1)
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GCL(1L)GCL(1L)NAME
gcl - GCL Common Lisp interpreter/compiler, CVS snapshot
SYNOPSIS
gcl [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
The program gcl is an implementation of a subset of the Common Lisp Ansi standard. It is written in C and in Common Lisp, and is highly
portable. It includes those features in the original definition of Common Lisp, (Guy Steele version 1.), as well as some features from
the proposed new standard.
The best documentation is available in texinfo/info form, with there being three groups of information. gcl-si for basic common lisp
descriptions, and features unique to gcl The gcl-tk info refers to the connection with tk window system, allowing all the power of the
tcl/tk interaction system to be used from lisp. The third info file gcl details the Ansi standard for common lisp, to which this subset
tries to adhere. It is highly recommended to write programs, which will be in the intersection of gcl and ansi common lisp. Unfortu-
nately the Ansi standard is huge, and will require a substantial effort, and increase in the size of gcl, to include all of it.
When gcl is invoked from the shell, the variable si::*command-args* is set to the list of command line arguments. Various options are
understood:
-eval command
Call read and then eval on the command passed in.
-load pathname
Load the file whose pathname is specified after -load.
-f Replace si::*command-args* by the the list starting after -f. Open the file following -fforinput,skipthefirstline,and then read and
eval the rest of the forms in the file. This can be used as with the shells to write small shell programs:
#!/usr/local/bin/gcl.exe -f
(format t "hello world ~a~%" (nth 1 si::*command-args*))
The value si::*command-args* will have the appropriate value. Thus if the above 2 line file is made executable and called foo then
tutorial% foo billy
hello world billy
NOTE: On many systems (eg SunOs) the first line of an executable script file such as: #!/usr/local/bin/gcl.exe -f only reads the first
32 characters! So if your pathname where the executable together with the '-f' amount to more than 32 characters the file will not be
recognized. Also the executable must be the actual large binary file, [or a link to it], and not just a /bin/sh script. In latter case
the /bin/sh interpreter would get invoked on the file.
Alternately one could invoke the file foo without making it executable:
tutorial% gcl -f foo "from bill"
hello world from bill
-batch Do not enter the command print loop. Useful if the other command line arguments do something. Do not print the License and
acknowledgement information. Note if your program does print any License information, it must print the GCL header information
also.
-dir Directory where the executable binary that is running is located. Needed by save and friends. This gets set as si::*system-direc-
tory*
-libdir
-libdir /d/wfs/gcl-2.0/
would mean that the files like gcl-tk/tk.o would be found by concatting the path to the libdir path, ie in /d/wfs/gcl-2.0/gcl-
tk/tk.o
-compile
Invoke the compiler on the filename following -compile Other flags affect compilation.
-o-file
If nil follows -o-file then do not produce an .o file.
-c-file
If -c-file is specified, leave the intermediate .c file there.
-h-file
If -h-file is specified, leave the intermediate .h file there.
-data-file
If -data-file is specified, leave the intermediate .data file there.
-system-p
If -system-p is specified then invoke compile-file with the :system-p t keyword argument, meaning that the C init function will bear
a name based on the name of the file, so that it may be invoked by name by C code.
This GNU package should not be confused with the proprietary program distributed by FRANZ, Inc. Nor should it be confused with any
public domain or proprietary lisp system.
For anything other than program development, use of the lisp compiler is strongly recommended in preference to use of the inter-
preter, due to much higher speed.
FILES
/usr/bin/gcl
executable shell script wrapper
/usr/lib/gcl-version/unixport/saved[_flavor]_gcl
executable lisp images
SEE ALSO
Common LISP: The Language, Guy L. Steele, Jr., Digital Press, Bedford, MA, 1984.
Common LISPcraft, Robert Wilensky, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1984.
AUTHORS
The GCL system contains C and Lisp source files to build a Common Lisp sytem. CGL is derived from Kyoto Common LISP (kcl), which was writ-
ten in 1984 by T. Yuasa and M. Hagiya (working under Professor R. Nakajima at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto Uni-
versity). The AKCL system work was begun in 1987 by William Schelter at the University of Texas, Austin, and continued through 1994. In
1994 AKCL was released as GCL (GNU Common Lisp) under the GNU public library license.
17 March 1997 GCL(1L)