Provided by: cl-launch_4.1.4-1_all 
Name
cl-launch - shell wrapper for Common Lisp
Synopsis
cl [options] ´(lisp (form) to evaluate)´
evaluate specified form, print the results followed by newline
as in: cl -l sbcl -sp my-system-and-package ´(some form)´
cl [options] script-file arguments...
run specified Lisp script, passing arguments, as in a script with
#!/usr/bin/cl -sp my-system-and-package -E main
cl [options] [--execute] [options] [-- arguments...]
run the specified software without generating a script (default)
cl [options] --output EXECUTABLE [options]
generate an executable script or binary from the software specification
Special modes
-h or -? --help display a short help message
-H --more-help show complete help (you may use a $PAGER)
-V --version display cl-launch version and configuration
-u FILE --update FILE update a cl-launch script to current version
Software specification
-w CODE --wrap CODE shell wrapper CODE to run in cl-launch
-l LISP... --lisp LISP... try use these LISP implementations
-m IMAGE --image IMAGE build from Lisp image IMAGE
-f FILE --file FILE include lisp FILE while building
-L FILE --load FILE load lisp FILE while building
-S X --source-registry X override source registry of asdf systems
-s SYSTEM --system SYSTEM load asdf SYSTEM while building
--load-system SYSTEM same as above (buildapp compatibility)
-p PACKAGE --package PACKAGE change current package to PACKAGE
-sp SP --system-package SP combination of -s SP and -p SP
-e FORM --eval FORM evaluate FORM while building
--require MODULE require MODULE while building
-DE N/F --dispatched-entry N/F if exec´ed as N, restart from (F argv)
-i FORM --init FORM evaluate FORM at restart
-ip FORM --print FORM evaluate and princ FORM at restart
-iw FORM --write FORM evaluate and write FORM at restart
-r FUNC --restart FUNC complete restart by calling (FUNC)
-E FUNC --entry FUNC complete restart by calling (FUNC argv)
-F FORM --final FORM evaluate FORM before dumping IMAGE
-I PATH --include PATH runtime PATH to cl-launch installation
+I --no-include disable cl-launch installation feature
-R --rc try read /etc/cl-launchrc, ~/.cl-launchrc
+R --no-rc skip /etc/cl-launchrc, ~/.cl-launchrc
-Q --quicklisp use quicklisp (see --more-help)
+Q --no-quicklisp do not use quicklisp
-b --clbuild use clbuild (see --more-help)
+b --no-clbuild do not use clbuild
-v --verbose be quite noisy while building
-q --quiet be quite quiet while building (default)
Output options
-x -o ! --execute run the specified software NOW (default)
-o FILE --output FILE create executable FILE
-d IMAGE --dump IMAGE dump IMAGE for faster startup
-X ... -- (see more help) use #!/.../cl-launch as script interpreter
-- -- end of arguments when using -x or -X
Invocation of cl-launch
cl-launch will evaluate Common Lisp code or create shell scripts or executable binaries that evaluate
Common Lisp code. cl-launch follows the invocation conventions of both Unix script interpreters and
Common Lisp implementations.
A suggested short-hand name for cl-launch is cl (you may create a symlink if it isn´t included in your
operating system´s cl-launch package). We´d like to homestead the path /usr/bin/cl while we can, so that
script authors can reasonably expect a script to work when it starts with:
`#!/usr/bin/cl`
(See Simple cl-launch scripts below for caveats with #! scripts though.) Recent Linux kernels support a
script interpreter itself being a script; BSD kernels don´t and require a small C program cl-shim to be
compiled and installed as /usr/bin/cl to use cl-launch this way.
To work properly, cl-launch 4.1.4 depends on ASDF 3.1.2 or later, and on its portability layer UIOP, to
manage compilation and image life cycle.
The software is specified as the evaluation of code in several phases; the distinction matters most for
creating executable binaries, but understanding the evaluation model can avoid surprises in other cases
too.
In the first phase, the Lisp image is initialized:
• optionally having your Lisp start from a Lisp IMAGE (option -I --image)
• loading a small header of code that provides common cl-launch functionality
• loading ASDF3. The cl-launch header will try hard to load ASDF 3.1.2 or later. If your implementation
does not provide it via (require "asdf"), you can configure your implementation´s ASDF (if any) to
find it. Or you can put it in your home, under ~/common-lip/asdf/ and cl-launch will find it. Or it
may be installed in /usr/share/common-lisp/source/cl-asdf/ in which case cl-launch will also find it.
Failing any of the above, cl-launch will be unable to proceed.
• optionally loading quicklisp http://beta.quicklisp.org/ (option -Q --quicklisp)
In a second phase, your software is built, based on the following options, in order of appearance:
• evaluating one or several FORMS (option -e --eval) in the current package. The series of forms is
evaluated as by LOAD, in a context where the *package* has been set to the current package (see below
explanations on packages).
• compiling a FILE and load the fasl (option -L --load) Files are loaded with *package* bound to the
current package (see below).
• including a FILE, compiling it and loading the fasl (option -f --file) The contents of the FILE,
which will have be included in the output script, will be compiled and the fasl loaded as if by
option -L --load. The difference matters mostly when creating an output script, as opposed to
executing the code immediately or dumping an image. Only one file may be specified this way. If a
filename specified with -f --file is - (after stripping quotes), then the standard input is used. You
may thus concatenate several files and feed them to cl-launch through a pipe. To use a file named -,
pass the argument ./- (same trick as for cat and other Unix commands).
• A script file, as specified by -X ... -- or by use of #! or by following options with an immediate
filename that does not start with ( or -, counts as if preceded by --package cl-user --load and
followed by --execute --
• requiring an implementation-provided MODULE (option --require)
• having ASDF3 compile and load a SYSTEM (option -s --system --load-system). Option -sp
--system-package loads the SYSTEM like -s --system and also changes the current *package* like -p
--package (see below on packages).
• optionally having your Lisp DUMP an image to restart from (option -d --dump), and just before
evaluating one or several FINAL forms (option -F --final). See section Dumping images.
If you are creating a shell script with option -o --output but without using option -d --dump, then these
first two phases only happen when the script is invoked. If you are using option -d --dump, then these
two phases happen immediately, and no compilation happen when invoking the output. Note that compiled
files are cached, so that the compilation only happens the first time a file is loaded via --load of
--system, or if the source file has been modified. This may cause slower startup the first time over. The
cache is controlled by ASDF´s output-translations mechanism. See your ASDF manual regarding the
configuration of this cache, which is typically under ~/.cache/common-lisp/
In a third phase, your software is run via UIOP:RESTORE-IMAGE. This happens immediately if using option
-x --execute or calling cl-launch as a Unix interpreter on a script e.g. via #!; or it can happen later
if you use option -o --output in combination with (or without) option -d --dump to dump an image (which
gives you faster startup and single-file or double-file delivery, at the expense of disk space), at which
point it happens when you invoke the executable output file:
• Hooks from ASDF3´s UIOP:*IMAGE-RESTORE-HOOK* are called (in FIFO order).
• a series of FORMS specified via options -i --init, -ip --print, -iw --write, stored as a text string,
are read and evaluated in order of appearance, each in the context of the package that was current at
the time it was requested. (Concatenated together with separating whitespace, these forms constitute
the UIOP:*IMAGE-PRELUDE* as handled by RESTORE-IMAGE). Arguments that start with an open parenthesis
are assumed to be FORMS that follow an implicit --print. Loading from a stream means you don´t have
to worry about nasty read-time issues; forms will be read by the fully built Lisp image; however it
also means that if you care a lot about the very last drop of startup delay when invoking a dumped
image, you´ll only use option -r --restart or -E --entry and avoid using --init and its variants.
Option -ip --print specifies FORMS such that the result of the last form will be printed as if by
PRINC, followed by a newline. Option -iw --write is similar to --print, using WRITE instead of PRINC.
• An optional FUNCTION provided option -r --restart or -E --entry is invoked after all init forms. If
the function was provided with option -r --restart (compatible with earlier versions of cl-launch),
it will be called with no argument. If it was provided with option -E --entry (compatible with
buildapp), it will be called with one argument, being the list of arguments passed to the program,
not including argv[0], which is available on most implementations via the function uiop:argv0
(available in ASDF 3.1.2 and later). Using either option, the argument may be a function name or a
lambda expression, that is read from the current package (see below option -p --package and -sp
--system-package). Only one restart or entry function may be specified; if multiple are provided, the
last one provided overrides previous ones. If you want several functions to be called, you may DEFUN
one that calls them and use it as a restart, or you may use multiple init forms as below. See also
below options -DE --dispatch-entry, -sm --system-main, -Ds --dispatch-system that behave as if -E
--entry had been specified among other things.
• If neither restart nor entry function is provided, the program will exit with status 0 (success). If
a function was provided, the program will exit after the function returns (if it returns), with
status 0 if and only if the primary return value of result is generalized boolean true, and with
status 1 if this value is NIL. See documentation for UIOP:RESTORE-IMAGE for details.
The current package can be controlled by option -p --package and its variant -sp --system-package that
also behaves like -s --system. All forms passed to --eval, --init, --print, --write, --final, --restart,
--entry, etc., are read in the current package. Files specified with -f --file --load are read in the
current package. Current means the package specified by the latest option -p --package or -sp
--system-package preceding the option being processed, or cl-user if there was none. Note that multiple
-i --init or -F --final forms may be evaluated consecutively after a package has been changed, and that
if one of these form itself modifies the package, or some other syntax control mechanism such as the
reader, it may adversely affect later forms in the same category, but not those in other categories (if
reached).
The following derived options work as if by a combination of simpler options:
• As mentioned above, option -sp --system-package combines --system and --package in one option, so
that given the argument SYSTEM, the system is loaded as if by --system SYSTEM that creates a package
SYSTEM that then becomes the current package.
• If option -DE --dispatch-entry is used, then the next argument must follow the format NAME/ENTRY,
where NAME is a name that the program may be invoked as (the basename of the uiop:argv0 argument),
and ENTRY is a function to be invoked as if by --entry when that is the case. If the ENTRY is left
out, function main in current package is used. Support for option -DE --dispatch-entry is delegated
to a dispatch library, distributed with cl-launch but not part of cl-launch itself, by (1)
registering a dependency on the dispatch library as if by --system cl-launch/dispatch (if not
already) (2) if neither --restart nor --entry was specified yet, registering a default entry function
as if by --entry cl-launch/dispatch:dispatch-entry. (3) registering a build-form that registers the
dispatch entry as if by --eval ´(cl-launch/dispatch:register-name/entry "NAME/ENTRY" :PACKAGE)´ where
PACKAGE is the current package. See the documentation of said library for further details.
• If option -Ds --dispatch-system is used with SYSTEM as its argument, it is as if option -s --system
had been used with the same argument, followed by option -DE --dispatch-entry for the basename of the
system (last / (slash) separated component of the system name) and the function main in the package
of the system, but without otherwise changing the current package.
• If option -sm --system-main is used with SYSTEM as its argument, it is as if option -s --system had
been used with the same argument, followed by option -E --entry with the main function in the package
of the system, but without otherwise changing the current package.
General note on cl-launch invocation: options are processed from left to right; usually, repeated options
accumulate their effects, with the earlier instances taking effect before latter instances. In case of
conflicting or redundant options, the latter override the former.
cl-launch defines a package cl-launch that exports the following symbol: compile-and-load-file Runtime
functionality formerly provided by cl-launch is now provided by UIOP, the portability layer provided by
ASDF3. See below section cl-launch runtime API.
When the first non-recognized option is a filename, cl-launch will try to load this filename as a script,
as if by --load, then execute it immediately as if by --execute --, with the rest of the command line
passed as arguments. The file name may not start with the character - or a ( --- To use a file with one
of these (or something unknown) as a first character, prepend ./ to the filename. Note that it is a
security risk to let adversaries control the names of files passed to cl-launch or other commands.
When option --execute is specified, the specified software is executed. Command-line arguments may be
given to software being executed by putting them after a special marker --, that ends cl-launch option
processing.
When option --output FILE is used, code will be generated into the specified FILE. The output file itself
will be created atomically from complete generated contents and may thus have the same pathname as the
input file. The restart function and init forms will not be evaluated, but kept for when the output file
is executed. If - (after quoting) is specified, then the standard output is used. If ! (after quoting) is
specified, then option --execute is assumed.
When no --output file is specified, option --execute is implicitly assumed. The last --output or
--execute option takes precedence over the previous ones.
If only one argument exists and it doesn´t start with - then the argument is considered as if given to
option -ip, to be evaluated and printed immediately.
The ASDF3 source-registry configuration can be overridden with option --source-registry SOURCE_REGISTRY.
The provided configuration will take priority over anything provided by the environment or configuration
files, though it may inherit from them as usual. See the ASDF3 manual about that.
Options -l --lisp and -w --wrap may be used to control the way that a Common Lisp implementation is found
when the software is run. Option -l --lisp specifies the list of implementations to try to use; the list
is whitespace-separated, and consists in nicknames recognized by cl-launch. Option -w --wrap supplies
arbitrary code to be evaluated by the shell wrapper, after it has read its configuration and defined its
internal functions, but before it tries to find and run a Lisp implementation. Such wrapper code is
typically used to modify the variables that control the run-time behaviour of generated scripts, as
documented below. Use of other internals of cl-launch is possible, but not supported, which means that it
is your responsibility to keep a copy of the specific version of cl-launch with which your code works and
to update your code if you later make an upgrade to an incompatible cl-launch. For instance, --lisp "foo
bar" is equivalent to --wrap ´LISPS="foo bar"´. See below the documentation section on Lisp
implementation invocation.
Option --no-include specifies that cl-launch should generate a standalone script that includes the
configuration, shell wrapper, Lisp header, and user-provided Lisp code (from --file). If you can rely on
the presence of a recent Lisp implementation that provides ASDF, then the script is pretty much
standalone indeed and may be moved around the filesystem and still used. However the size of the output
will be the size of the user Lisp code plus about 36KiB.
Option --include PATH specifies that cl-launch should generate a very small script (typically under 1KiB)
that when run will read the cl-launch shell wrapper and Lisp header from a specified installation
directory PATH. Also, if option --include is used, and Lisp code is specified with --file and an absolute
pathname starting with / as opposed to a relative pathname or to the standard input, then Lisp code will
also be loaded from the specified location at runtime rather than embedded into the script at generation
time. This option generates leaner scripts, but may not be applicable when the very same script is to
used in a variety of situations that lack common coherent filesystem management.
Which of --include or --no-include is the default may depend on your cl-launch installation. The version
of cl-launch distributed by the author uses --no-include by default, but the version of cl-launch
available in your operating system distribution may rely on a well-managed include path (this is the case
with debian for instance). You may query the configuration of an instance of cl-launch with option
--version.
For instance, one may expect a debian version of cl-launch to use:
`/usr/share/common-lisp/source/cl-launch/`
as a system-managed include path. One may also expect that Lisp implementations managed by the system
would come with cl-launch precompiled in Lisp images. Since cl-launch provides feature :cl-launch, and
since the cl-launch Lisp header is conditionalized to not be read with this feature, this would make
cl-launch startup faster, while still allowing non-system-managed Lisp implementations to run fine.
You may create an installation of cl-launch with such a command as:
cl-launch --include /usr/share/common-lisp/source/cl-launch \
--lisp ´sbcl ccl clisp´ \
--rc \
--output /usr/bin/cl-launch -B install
You can use command -B install_bin if you only want to configure cl-launch (with a different default for
--lisp but no --include, for instance), and command -B install_path if you only want to create support
files. Note that the --backdoor option -B must come last in your invocation.
Option +R --no-rc specifies that cl-launch should not try to read resource files /etc/cl-launchrc and
~/.cl-launchrc.
Option -R --rc specifies that cl-launch should try to read resource files /etc/cl-launchrc and
~/.cl-launchrc. These files are notably useful to define override the value of $LISP depending on
$SOFTWARE_SYSTEM. A shell function system_preferred_lisps is provided so that your cl-launchrc might
contain lines as follows:
system_preferred_lisps stumpwm cmucl sbcl clisp
system_preferred_lisps exscribe clisp cmucl sbcl
Beware that for the sake of parsing option --no-rc, the resource files are run after options are
processed, and that any overriding of internal variables will thus preempt user-specified options. A
warning will be printed on the standard error output when such an override happens. Note that such
overrides only happen at script-creation time. A script created by cl-launch will not try to read the
cl-launch resource files.
Option +Q --no-quicklisp specifies that cl-launch should not use quicklisp. Option -Q --quicklisp
specifies that cl-launch should use quicklisp. Which is the default depends on your installation. The
default default is +Q. Quicklisp is loaded from ~/quicklisp/setup.lisp if available, or else
~/.quicklisp/setup.lisp.
Option -b --clbuild specifies that cl-launch should rely on clbuild to find and invoke the Common Lisp
implementation. Option +b --no-clbuild specifies that cl-launch should not rely on clbuild to find and
invoke the Common Lisp implementation. Which is the default depends on your installation. The default
default is +b.
Files generated by cl-launch are made of several well-identifiable sections. These sections may thus be
considered as distinct software, each available under its own regime of intellectual property (if any).
In case of an accident, you may still retrieve the exact original code provided with option --file by
stripping the wrapper, as delimited by well-identified markers. Search for the marker string "BEGINS
HERE:". Everything after it is not cl-launch. This can be done automatically with backdoor option -B
extract_lisp_content. cl-launch uses this functionality implicitly when embedding a file specified with
the option --file, so that you may process a script previously generated by cl-launch and change the
options with which it wraps the embedded Lisp code into runnable software.
As an alternative, you may also upgrade a previously generated script to use the current version of
cl-launch while preserving its original wrapping options with option --update. In this case, software
specification options are ignored. Output options still apply. Specifying - (after quoting) as the file
to update means to read the contents to be read from the standard input. This feature might not work with
scripts generated by very early versions of the cl-launch utility. It should work with versions later
than 1.47.
Supported Lisp implementations
The implementations supported by current version of cl-launch are:
abcl allegro ccl clisp cmucl ecl gcl lispworks sbcl scl xcl
Also defined are aliases:
clozurecl gclcvs lisp openmcl
which are name variations for ccl, gcl, cmucl and ccl again respectively.
Fully supported, including standalone executables:
sbcl: SBCL 1.2.2
clisp: GNU CLISP 2.49
ecl: ECL 13.5.1
cmucl: CMUCL 20D
ccl: ClozureCL 1.10
lispworks: LispWorks Professional 7.0.0 (no personal ed, banner)
Fully supported, but no standalone executables:
gcl (GCL 2.7): GCL 2.7.0 ansi mode (get a very recent git checkout)
allegro: Allegro 9.0 (also used to work with 5)
scl: Scieneer CL 1.3.9
Incomplete support:
abcl: ABCL 1.3.1 (no image dumping support, but you may use abcl-jar)
xcl: XCL 0.0.0.291 (cannot dump an image) (get a recent checkout)
GCL is only supported in ANSI mode. cl-launch does export GCL_ANSI=t in the hope that the gcl wrapper
script does the right thing as it does in Debian. Also ASDF3 requires a very recent GCL 2.7. Note that
GCL seems to not be very actively maintained anymore.
There are some issues regarding standalone executables on CLISP. See below in the section regarding
Standalone executables.
LispWorks requires the Professional Edition; the Personal Edition isn´t supported as it won´t let you
either control the command line or dump images. Dumped images will print a banner, unless you dump a
standalone executable. To dump an image, make sure you have a license file in your target directory
and/or to .../lispworks/lib/7-0-0-0/config/lwlicense (or use a trampoline shell script to exec
/path/to/lispworks "$@"), create a build script with:
echo ´(hcl:save-image "lispworks-console" :environment nil)´ > si.lisp
lispworks-7-0-0-x86-linux -siteinit - -init - -build si.lisp
There is no standard name for a console-only variant of LispWorks; older versions of cl-launch assume a
default lispworks; since cl-launch 4.1.2.1, lispworks-console is assumed instead, to avoid conflicts. You
can control the name you use with the shell variable $LISPWORKS, or you can just leave lispworks-console
in your path, and use a symlink, copy, shell alias or trivial wrapper script to enable your favorite
shorter name lispworks, lw, lwcon, lw-console, etc.
Similarly, a mlisp image for allegro can be created as follows:
alisp -e ´(progn
(build-lisp-image "sys:mlisp.dxl"
:case-mode :case-sensitive-lower
:include-ide nil :restart-app-function nil)
(when (probe-file "sys:mlisp") (delete-file "sys:mlisp"))
(sys:copy-file "sys:alisp" "sys:mlisp"))´
Additionally, cl-launch supports the use of clbuild as a wrapper to invoke the Lisp implementation, with
the --clbuild option.
Supported shells
cl-launch was tested with all of posh 0.4.7, bash 2.05, bash 3.1, zsh 4.3.2, dash 0.5.3 and busybox 1.01
ash.
Lisp implementation invocation
When a cl-launch generated script is invoked, the cl-launch shell wrapper will try to execute the Lisp
code with the first Common Lisp implementation it finds in a given list, which can be specified through
option --lisp. The runtime behaviour of the cl-launch shell wrapper is very configurable through a series
of environment variables. These variables can be controlled by the user by exporting them in his
environment, or they can be restricted at the time of script generation by using cl-launch option --wrap.
If variable LISP is defined, the shell wrapper will first try the implementation named by variable LISP.
If that fails, it will try the list of implementations provided at script generation time. The list of
implementations generated will be the argument to option --lisp if specified. Otherwise, cl-launch will
supply its default value. This default value for the current instance of cl-launch is:
sbcl ccl clisp abcl allegro lispworks scl cmucl ecl mkcl gcl xcl
This LISP selection only happens at system preparation time. If you dump an image then the script will
always use the Lisp implementation for which an image was dumped. If you don´t then the user may override
the implementation.
Note that these are nicknames built into the cl-launch shell wrapper, and not necessarily names of actual
binary. You may control the mapping of implementation nickname to actual binary pathname to call with an
environment variable. For a given implementation nickname, the environment variable will be the
capitalization of the given nickname. Hence, variable $SBCL controls where to look for the sbcl
implementation, and variable $CMUCL controls where to look for the cmucl implementation. If a binary is
found with a matching pathname (using the standard unix $PATH as required), then said implementation will
be used, using proper command line options, that may be overridden with an environment variable similar
to the previous but with _OPTIONS appended to its name. Hence, $CMUCL_OPTIONS for cmucl, $CLISP_OPTIONS
for clisp, etc. Sensible defaults are provided for each implementation, so as to execute the software in
non-interactive mode, with debugger disabled, without reading user-specific configuration files, etc.
If you want to insist on using a given implementation with given options, you may use option --lisp and
--wrap, as follows:
--lisp ´sbcl clisp´ --wrap ´
LISP= # do not allow the user to specify his implementation
SBCL=/usr/bin/sbcl # not any experimental thing by the user
SBCL_OPTIONS="--noinform --sysinit /dev/null --userinit /dev/null \
--disable-debugger" # predictable Lisp state
CLISP=/usr/bin/clisp # fall back on machines that lack SBCL
CLISP_OPTIONS=" -norc --quiet --quiet"
# configure ASDF:
CL_SOURCE_REGISTRY=/usr/local/share/common-lisp/source//:
# assuming precompiled fasls there:
ASDF_OUTPUT_TRANSLATIONS=/my/cl/src:/my/fasl/cache:
´
If you dump an image, you need not unset the LISP variable, but you might still want to override any
user-specified SBCL and SBCL_OPTIONS (or corresponding variables for your selected implementation) from
what the user may specify.
Note that you can use option --wrap "$(cat your_script)" to embed into your program a full fledged script
from a file. Your script may do arbitrary computations before the shell wrapper is run. It may make some
consistency checks and abort before to run Lisp. Or it may analyze invocation arguments and make
according adjustments to Lisp implementation options. This can be useful for setting options that cannot
be set from the Lisp code, such the path to a runtime image, interactive or non-interactive execution,
size of heaps, locale settings for source file encoding, etc.
Reading the source code of cl-launch can be completely crazy. You may have great fun understanding why
things are how they are and adding features without breaking anything! However, adding support for a new
CL implementation should be straightforward enough: just search the sources for clisp or sbcl and mimic
what I did for them. Be sure to send me what will get your favorite Lisp flavor of the month rolling.
Limited clbuild support
cl-launch 2.12 and later support using clbuild as a wrapper to configure your Lisp implementation, with
option --clbuild (which can be disabled with option --no-clbuild if it was enabled by default in your
cl-launch installation).
Note that when you use clbuild, you can no longer override implementation options with say SBCL_OPTIONS,
as clbuild takes care of the options for you. Any implementation banner will not be removed unless you
instruct clbuild to do so. Also, you cannot use clbuild with a non-executable image different from
clbuild´s, which precludes image dumping with cmucl or allegro (allegro could probably be updated, but I
don´t have a recent licence to test and develop).
clbuild support is not fully tested at this point. Please report any bug.
Simple cl-launch scripts
In simple cases, you may create a Common Lisp shell script with cl-launch without a script generation
step, just because you´ll spend a lot of time editing the script and distributing it, and little time
waiting for script startup time anyway. This notably is a good idea if you´re not spawning many instances
of the same version of a script on a given computer. If that´s what you want, you may use cl-launch as a
script interpret the following way (stripping leading spaces):
#!/path/to/cl-launch ...options...
For instance, you may write the following script (stripping leading spaces):
#!/usr/bin/cl --entry main
(defun main (argv)
(format t "Hello, World!~%~S~%" argv))
On a recent Linux kernel, the options may include spaces, parentheses, etc., provided they are quoted as
in a shell script. Also, using -X as your very first option and -- as your last will ensure that the
script works even if its name starts with a ( or a -, in addition to working with older versions of
cl-launch.
Note however that Darwin (MacOS X) and other BSD kernels or old Linux kernels don´t like the #!
interpreter to itself be interpreted. On these operating system kernels, the system administrator must
compile and install a small shim written in C, cl-shim.c, that will handle the proper script invocation.
Most kernels have restrictions on how they handle arguments to a #! script, that prevent e.g. using
/usr/bin/env as a trampoline; however, you may use the fully portable solution as follows, where the ":"
; ensures that the script should remain valid bilingual shell and Lisp code:
#!/bin/sh
":" ; exec cl-launch -X -sp my-package -E main -- "$0" ${1+"$@"} || exit
(Actually "$@" instead of ${1+"$@"} should work just fine, unless you have an antique shell.)
Note that if you don´t need Lisp code to be loaded from your script, with everything happening in the
build specification, then you may instead use a simple #!/bin/sh shell script from which you:
exec /path/to/cl-launch -x ... -- "$@".
Also, in case you can´t rely on cl-launch being at a fixed path, or if your shell and/or kernel
combination doesn´t support using cl-launch as a script interpreter, then you may instead start your
script with the following lines:
#!/bin/sh
":" ; exec cl-launch -X -- "$0" "$@" || exit
(format t "It works!~%")
Note that a mainline Linux kernel only supports the recursive #! implicit in #!/usr/bin/cl-launch since
2.6.27.9.
Dumping images
You can dump an image (for static compilation and fast startup) with option --dump IMAGE where IMAGE
specifies the path where the image will be dumped.
If you use option --include PATH then the image will be loaded back from that specified directory instead
of the directory where you dumped it. This is useful if you´re preparing a script to be installed at
another place maybe on another computer.
This option is currently supported on all CL implementations available with cl-launch.
As a limitation, LispWorks will print a banner on standard output, unless you use the standalone
executable option below.
As another limitation, ECL will not be able to dump an image when running from a previously dumped image
(with --image). This is because of the link model of ECL, whereby you´d need to be able to locate which
object files were used in linking the original image, keep track of these files, and prepend the list of
them to to the object files linked into the dump. This is not conceptually impossible and patches are
welcome. However, we hope to support that someday with a real build system that does it for you, such as
XCVB.
Standalone executables
You can create standalone executables with the option --dump ´!´ (or by giving a --dump argument
identical to the --output argument).
This option is currently only supported with SBCL, ECL, CLISP, CMUCL, CCL and LispWorks Professional.
Moreover CLISP has the issues below.
CLISP standalone executables will react magically if invoked with options such as --clisp-help or
--clisp-x ´(sys::main-loop)´. That´s a pretty far-fetched thing to hit by mistake, and the CLISP
maintainers consider it a feature (I don´t). Don´t use such executables as setuid, and don´t let
untrusted users control arguments given to such executables that are run with extra privileges.
cl-launch runtime API
cl-launch provides the following Lisp functions:
Function cl-launch:compile-and-load-file takes as an argument a source pathname designator, and keyword
arguments force-recompile (default NIL) and verbose (default NIL). It will arrange to compile the
specified source file if it is explicitly requested, or if the file doesn´t exist, or if the fasl is not
up-to-date. It will compile and load with the specified verbosity. It will take use
uiop:compile-file-pathname* to determine the fasl pathname.
The following variables and functions previously provided by cl-launch have the following replacement
from ASDF and UIOP:
Variable cl-launch:*arguments* is replaced by uiop:*command-line-arguments*.
Function cl-launch:getenv is replaced by uiop:getenv.
Function cl-launch:load-system is replaced by asdf:load-system.
Function cl-launch:quit is replaced by uiop:quit (beware: the lambda-list is slightly different).
Additionally, environment variables CL_LAUNCH_PID and CL_LAUNCH_FILE will be set to the process ID and
the script invocation filename respectively.
Verbose output mode
If the shell variable CL_LAUNCH_VERBOSE is exported and non-nil, then cl-launch and the scripts it
generates will produce an abundance of output, display such things as the Lisp invocation command,
compiling and loading files with :verbose t and :print t, etc. This is only useful for debugging
cl-launch and/or your build process. Option --verbose sets this variable, whereas option --quiet resets
it.
Makefile examples
### Automatically download of the current version of cl-launch if not present
cl-launch.sh:
wget -O cl-launch.sh http://fare.tunes.org/files/cl-launch/cl-launch.sh
chmod a+x cl-launch.sh
### Making a shell script executable from a simple Lisp file named foo.lisp
foo.sh: cl-launch.sh foo.lisp
./cl-launch.sh --output foo.sh --file foo.lisp
### A more complex example using all options.
run-foo.sh: cl-launch.sh preamble.lisp
./cl-launch.sh --output run-foo.sh \
--file preamble.lisp --system foo \
--init "(foo:main uiop:*command-line-arguments*)" \
--source-registry ${PREFIX}/cl-foo/systems: \
--lisp "ccl sbcl" --wrap ´SBCL=/usr/local/bin/sbcl-no-unicode´ \
--no-include
### An example with horrible nested makefile, shell and Lisp quoting
hello:
opera=wORlD ; ./cl-launch.sh --execute --init \
"(format t \"~25R~A~A~%\" 6873049 #\\space ´$$opera)"
Caveat Lispor
cl-launch begins evaluation of your Lisp software in the cl-user package, or whichever package you
specify. By the time your initialization forms are evaluated, the package may or may not have changed,
depending on the fine-grained semantics of load. Be sure to use in-package if these things matter. If you
change the readtable, even weirder things may happen.
There are lots of ways of making mistakes by improperly quoting things when you write shell commands.
cl-launch does the right thing, but you still must be careful with the nested quoting mechanisms of make,
shell, and Lisp.
Here is a simple example use of cl-launch to quickly compare the result of a same computation on a
variety of systems:
for l in sbcl cmucl clisp gcl ccl ; do
./cl-launch.sh --lisp $l --execute --init \
´(format t "´$l´ ~A~%" most-positive-fixnum)´ ; done
Internally, cl-launch includes many self-test functions. You may for instance try (from a directory where
it may create junk):
./cl-launch.sh -l ´sbcl cmucl clisp gclcvs´ -B tests
Share and Enjoy!
See our web page on:
<http://www.cliki.net/cl-launch>
Note: if this help is too long for you, you may scroll back, or use:
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