What it is

ASDF-Install is Common Lisp's answer to CPAN: an internet-based, dependency-chasing, installation system. ASDF-Install was originally written for SBCL by Dan Barlow and then ported by Edi Weitz and many others. It knows how to work with systems defined by either ASDF or MK-Defsystem.

ASDF-Install is a tool for downloading and installing lisp packages. It:

• downloads lisp libraries (defined using either ASDF or MK-Defsystem) and installs them in the local file system,
• chases sub-system dependencies, and
• uses PGP signatures to verify the provenance of the downloaded code (requires GPG)

The best source of information on ASDF-Install is probably its CLiki page. Edi Weitz wrote an excellent tutorial which is now maintained by Gary King.

Mailing Lists

• asdf-install-devel: A list for questions, patches, bug reports, and so on; It's for everything.
• You can also use the CCLAN mailing list.

Where is it

SBCL (since 0.8.3) and OpenMCL (since 0.14.1) come with a version of ASDF-Install. You can get the latest version with this gzipped tar file. There is also a darcs repository at:

darcs get http://common-lisp.net/project/cl-containers/asdf-install/darcs/asdf-install

Finally, you should be able to get the latest version using ASDF-Install itself (though you will probably need to edit your local configuration files in order to use this version.

What is happening