5.1 Loading a system

The system foo is loaded (and compiled, if necessary) by evaluating the following Lisp form:

(asdf:load-system :foo)

On some implementations (see Convenience Functions), ASDF hooks into the cl:require facility and you can just use:

(require :foo)

Note that the canonical name of a system is a string, in lowercase. System names can also be specified as symbols (including keyword symbols). If a symbol is given as argument, its package is ignored, its symbol-name is taken, and converted to lowercase. The name must be a suitable value for the :name initarg to make-pathname in whatever filesystem the system is to be found.

Using lowercase as canonical is unconventional, but was selected after some consideration. The type of file systems we support either have lowercase as customary case (Unix, Mac, Windows) or silently convert lowercase to uppercase (lpns).