Several design choices in Common Lisp are left to the individual implementation, and some essential parts of the programming environment are left undefined. This chapter discusses the most important design choices and extensions.
The fixnum type is equivalent to (signed-byte 30). Integers outside this range are represented as a bignum or a word integer (see section 5.11.6.) Almost all integers that appear in programs can be represented as a fixnum, so integer number consing is rare.
cmucl supports three floating point formats: single-float, double-float and double-double-float. The first two are implemented with IEEE single and double float arithmetic, respectively. The last is an extension; see section 2.1.3 for more information. short-float is a synonym for single-float, and long-float is a synonym for double-float. The initial value of *read-default-float-format* is single-float.
Both single-float and double-float are represented with a pointer descriptor, so float operations can cause number consing. Number consing is greatly reduced if programs are written to allow the use of non-descriptor representations (see section 5.11.)
cmucl supports the IEEE infinity and NaN special values. These non-numeric values will only be generated when trapping is disabled for some floating point exception (see section 2.1.2.4), so users of the default configuration need not concern themselves with special values.
| extensions:short-float-positive-infinity |
[Constant]
extensions:short-float-negative-infinity [Constant]
extensions:single-float-positive-infinity [Constant]
extensions:single-float-negative-infinity [Constant]
extensions:double-float-positive-infinity [Constant]
extensions:double-float-negative-infinity [Constant]
extensions:long-float-positive-infinity [Constant]
extensions:long-float-negative-infinity The values of these constants are the IEEE positive and negative infinity objects for each float format.
This function returns true if x is an IEEE float infinity (of either sign.) x must be a float.
float-nan-p returns true if x is an IEEE NaN (Not A Number) object. float-signaling-nan-p returns true only if x is a trapping NaN. With either function, x must be a float. float-trapping-nan-p is the former name of float-signaling-nan-p and is deprecated.
The IEEE float format provides for distinct positive and negative zeros. To test the sign on zero (or any other float), use the Common Lisp float-sign function. Negative zero prints as -0.0f0 or -0.0d0.
cmucl supports IEEE denormalized floats. Denormalized floats provide a mechanism for gradual underflow. The Common Lisp float-precision function returns the actual precision of a denormalized float, which will be less than float-digits. Note that in order to generate (or even print) denormalized floats, trapping must be disabled for the underflow exception (see section 2.1.2.4.) The Common Lisp least-positive-format-float constants are denormalized.
This function returns true if x is a denormalized float. x must be a float.
The IEEE floating point standard defines several exceptions that occur when the result of a floating point operation is unclear or undesirable. Exceptions can be ignored, in which case some default action is taken, such as returning a special value. When trapping is enabled for an exception, a error is signalled whenever that exception occurs. These are the possible floating point exceptions:
IEEE floating point specifies four possible rounding modes:
Warning: Although the rounding mode can be changed with set-floating-point-modes, use of any value other than the default (:nearest) can cause unusual behavior, since it will affect rounding done by Common Lisp system code as well as rounding in user code. In particular, the unary round function will stop doing round-to-nearest on floats, and instead do the selected form of rounding.
These functions can be used to modify or read the floating point modes:
| extensions:set-floating-point-modes &key | :traps :rounding-mode |
| :fast-mode :accrued-exceptions | |
| :current-exceptions |
The keyword arguments to set-floating-point-modes set various modes controlling how floating point arithmetic is done:
- :traps
- A list of the exception conditions that should cause traps. Possible exceptions are :underflow, :overflow, :inexact, :invalid and :divide-by-zero. Initially all traps except :inexact are enabled. See section 2.1.2.4.
- :rounding-mode
- The rounding mode to use when the result is not exact. Possible values are :nearest, :positive-infinity, :negative-infinity and :zero. Initially, the rounding mode is :nearest. See the warning in section 2.1.2.5 about use of other rounding modes.
- :current-exceptions, :accrued-exceptions
- Lists of exception keywords used to set the exception flags. The current-exceptions are the exceptions for the previous operation, so setting it is not very useful. The accrued-exceptions are a cumulative record of the exceptions that occurred since the last time these flags were cleared. Specifying () will clear any accrued exceptions.
- :fast-mode
- Set the hardware’s “fast mode” flag, if any. When set, IEEE conformance or debuggability may be impaired. Some machines may not have this feature, in which case the value is always nil. Sparc platforms support a fast mode where denormal numbers are silently truncated to zero.
If a keyword argument is not supplied, then the associated state is not changed.
get-floating-point-modes returns a list representing the state of the floating point modes. The list is in the same format as the keyword arguments to set-floating-point-modes, so apply could be used with set-floating-point-modes to restore the modes in effect at the time of the call to get-floating-point-modes.
To make handling control of floating-point exceptions, the following macro is useful.
body is executed with the selected floating-point exceptions given by traps masked out (disabled). traps should be a list of possible floating-point exceptions that should be ignored. Possible values are :underflow, :overflow, :inexact, :invalid and :divide-by-zero.This is equivalent to saving the current traps from get-floating-point-modes, setting the floating-point modes to the desired exceptions, running the body, and restoring the saved floating-point modes. The advantage of this macro is that it causes less consing to occur.
Some points about the with-float-traps-masked:
- Two approaches are available for detecting FP exceptions:
Of these the latter is the most portable because on the alpha port it is not possible to enable some traps at run-time.
- enabling the traps and handling the exceptions
- disabling the traps and either handling the return values or checking the accrued exceptions.
- To assist the checking of the exceptions within the body any accrued exceptions matching the given traps are cleared at the start of the body when the traps are masked.
- To allow the macros to be nested these accrued exceptions are restored at the end of the body to their values at the start of the body. Thus any exceptions that occurred within the body will not affect the accrued exceptions outside the macro.
- Note that only the given exceptions are restored at the end of the body so other exception will be visible in the accrued exceptions outside the body.
- On the x86, setting the accrued exceptions of an unmasked exception would cause a FP trap. The macro behaviour of restoring the accrued exceptions ensures than if an accrued exception is initially not flagged and occurs within the body it will be restored/cleared at the exit of the body and thus not cause a trap.
- On the x86, and, perhaps, the hppa, the FP exceptions may be delivered at the next FP instruction which requires a FP wait instruction (x86::float-wait) if using the lisp conditions to catch trap within a handler-bind. The handler-bind macro does the right thing and inserts a float-wait (at the end of its body on the x86). The masking and noting of exceptions is also safe here.
- The setting of the FP flags uses the (floating-point-modes) and the (set (floating-point-modes)…) VOPs. These VOPs blindly update the flags which may include other state. We assume this state hasn’t changed in between getting and setting the state. For example, if you used the FP unit between the above calls, the state may be incorrectly restored! The with-float-traps-masked macro keeps the intervening code to a minimum and uses only integer operations.
cmucl also has an extension to support double-double-float type. This float format provides extended precision of about 31 decimal digits, with the same exponent range as double-float. It is completely integrated into cmucl, and can be used just like any other floating-point object, including arrays, complex double-double-float’s, and special functions. With appropriate declarations, no boxing is needed, just like single-float and double-float.
The exponent marker for a double-double float number is “W”, so “1.234w0” is a double-double float number.
Note that there are a few shortcomings with double-double-float’s:
The double-double-float type. It is in the EXTENSIONS package.
| extensions:dd-pi |
A double-double-float approximation to π.
cmucl implements characters according to Common Lisp: The Language II. The main difference from the first version is that character bits and font have been eliminated, and the names of the types have been changed. base-character is the new equivalent of the old string-char. In this implementation, all characters are base characters (there are no extended characters.) Character codes range between 0 and 255, using the ASCII encoding. Table 2.1 tbl:chars shows characters recognized by cmucl.
ASCII Lisp Name Code Name 1.5exAlternatives nul 0 #\NULL #\NUL bel 7 #\BELL bs 8 #\BACKSPACE #\BS tab 9 #\TAB lf 10 #\NEWLINE #\NL #\LINEFEED #\LF ff 11 #\VT #\PAGE #\FORM cr 13 #\RETURN #\CR esc 27 #\ESCAPE #\ESC #\ALTMODE #\ALT sp 32 #\SPACE #\SP del 127 #\DELETE #\RUBOUT
Table 2.1: Characters recognized by cmucl
If no :initial-value is specified, arrays are initialized to zero.
The hash-tables defined by Common Lisp have limited utility because they are limited to testing their keys using the equality predicates provided by (pre-CLOS) Common Lisp. cmucl overcomes this limitation by allowing its users to specify new hash table tests and hashing methods. The hashing method must also be specified, since the compiler is unable to determine a good hashing function for an arbitrary equality (equivalence) predicate.
The hash-table-test-name must be a symbol. The test-function takes two objects and returns true iff they are the same. The hash-function takes one object and returns two values: the (positive fixnum) hash value and true if the hashing depends on pointer values and will have to be redone if the object moves.
To create a hash-table using this new “test” (really, a test/hash-function pair), use (make-hash-table :test hash-table-test-name …).
Note that it is the hash-table-test-name that will be returned by the function hash-table-test, when applied to a hash-table created using this function.
This function updates *hash-table-tests*, which is now internal.
cmucl also supports a number of weak hash tables. These weak tables are created using the :weak-p argument to make-hash-table. Normally, a reference to an object as either the key or value of the hash-table will prevent that object from being garbage-collected. However, in a weak table, if the only reference is the hash-table, the object can be collected.
The possible values for :weak-p are listed below. An entry in the table remains if the condition holds
If the condition does not hold, the object can be removed from the hash table.
Weak hash tables can only be created if the test is eq or eql. An error is signaled if this is not the case.
Creates a hash-table with the specified properties.
cmucl has several interrupt handlers defined when it starts up, as follows:
For keyboard interrupt signals, the standard interrupt character is in parentheses. Your .login may set up different interrupt characters. When a signal is generated, there may be some delay before it is processed since Lisp cannot be interrupted safely in an arbitrary place. The computation will continue until a safe point is reached and then the interrupt will be processed. See section 6.8.1 to define your own signal handlers.
When cmucl is first started up, the default package is the common-lisp-user package. The common-lisp-user package uses the common-lisp and extensions packages. The symbols exported from these three packages can be referenced without package qualifiers. This section describes packages which have exported interfaces that may concern users. The numerous internal packages which implement parts of the system are not described here. Package nicknames are in parenthesis after the full name.
The Common Lisp package system, designed and standardized several years ago, is not hierarchical. Since Common Lisp was standardized, other languages, including Java and Perl, have evolved namespaces which are hierarchical. This document describes a hierarchical package naming scheme for Common Lisp. The scheme was proposed by Franz Inc and implemented in their Allegro Common Lisp product; a compatible implementation of the naming scheme is implemented in cmucl. This documentation is based on the Franz Inc. documentation, and is included with permission.
The goals of hierarchical packages in Common Lisp are:
In a nutshell, a dot (.) is used to separate levels
in package names, and a leading dot signifies a relative package
name. The choice of dot follows Java. Perl, another language with
hierarchical packages, uses a colon (:) as a
delimiter, but the colon is already reserved in Common Lisp.
Absolute package names require no modifications to the underlying
Common Lisp implementation. Relative package names require only
small and simple modifications.
Relative package names are needed for the same reason as relative pathnames, for brevity and to reduce the brittleness of absolute names. A relative package name is one that begins with one or more dots. A single dot means the current package, two dots mean the parent of the current package, and so on.
Table 2.2
presents a number of examples, assuming that the packages named
foo, foo.bar, mypack,
mypack.foo, mypack.foo.bar,
mypack.foo.baz, mypack.bar, and
mypack.bar.baz, have all been created.
relative name current package absolute name of referenced package foo any foo foo.bar any foo.bar .foo mypack mypack.foo .foo.bar mypack mypack.foo.bar ..foo mypack.bar mypack.foo ..foo.baz mypack.bar mypack.foo.baz ...foo mypack.bar.baz mypack.foo . mypack.bar.baz mypack.bar.baz .. mypack.bar.baz mypack.bar ... mypack.bar.baz mypack
Table 2.2: Examples of hierarchical packages
Additional notes:
(defpackage :cl-user.foo)
When the current package (the value of the variable *package*) is common-lisp-user,
you might expect .foo to refer to
cl-user.foo, but it does not. It actually refers to
the non-existent package common-lisp-user.foo. Note
that the purpose of nicknames is to provide shorter names in place
of the longer names that are designed to be fully descriptive. The
hope is that hierarchical packages makes longer names unnecessary
and thus makes nicknames unnecessary.
foo.bar..baz
does not mean foo.baz – it is invalid. (Of course, it
is perfectly legal to name a package foo.bar..baz, but
cl:find-package will not process such a name
to find foo.baz in the package hierarchy.)The implementation of hierarchical packages modifies the cl:find-package function, and provides certain auxiliary functions, package-parent, package-children, and relative-package-name-to-package, as described in this section. The function defpackage itself requires no modification.
While the changes to cl:find-package are small and described below, it is an important consideration for authors who would like their programs to run on a variety of implementations that using hierarchical packages will work in an implementation without the modifications discussed in this document. We show why after describing the changes to cl:find-package.
Absolute hierarchical package names require no changes in the underlying Common Lisp implementation.
Using relative hierarchical package names requires a simple modification of cl:find-package.
In ANSI Common Lisp, cl:find-package, if passed a package object, returns it; if passed a string, cl:find-package looks for a package with that string as its name or nickname, and returns the package if it finds one, or returns nil if it does not; if passed a symbol, the symbol name (a string) is extracted and cl:find-package proceeds as it does with a string.
For implementing hierarchical packages, the behavior when the argument is a package object (return it) does not change. But when the argument is a string starting with one or more dots not directly naming a package, cl:find-package will, instead of returning nil, check whether the string can be resolved as naming a relative package, and if so, return the associated absolute package object. (If the argument is a symbol, the symbol name is extracted and cl:find-package proceeds as it does with a string argument.)
Note that you should not use leading dots in package names when using hierarchical packages.
Even without the modifications to cl:find-package, authors need not avoid using relative
package names, but the ability to reuse relative package names is
restricted. Consider for example a module foo which is composed of the
my.foo.bar and my.foo.baz packages. In
the code for each of the these packages there are relative package
references, ..bar and ..baz.
Implementations that have the new cl:find-package would have
:relative-package-names on their *features* list (this is the case of cmucl releases starting from 18d).
Then, in the foo module,
there would be definitions of the my.foo.bar and
my.foo.baz packages like so:
(defpackage :my.foo.bar
#-relative-package-names (:nicknames #:..bar)
...)
(defpackage :my.foo.baz
#-relative-package-names (:nicknames #:..baz)
...)
Then, in a #-relative-package-names implementation,
the symbol my.foo.bar:blam would be visible from
my.foo.baz as ..bar:blam, just as it
would from a #+relative-package-names
implementation.
So, even without the implementation of the augmented cl:find-package, one can still write Common Lisp code
that will work in both types of implementations, but
..bar and ..baz are now used, so you
cannot also have otherpack.foo.bar and
otherpack.foo.baz and use ..bar and
..baz as relative names. (The point of hierarchical
packages, of course, is to allow reusing relative package
names.)
cmucl provides two types of package locks, as an extension to the ANSI Common Lisp standard. The package-lock protects a package from changes in its structure (the set of exported symbols, its use list, etc). The package-definition-lock protects the symbols in the package from being redefined due to the execution of a defun, defmacro, defstruct, deftype or defclass form.
Package locks are an aid to program development, by helping to detect inadvertent name collisions and function redefinitions. They are consistent with the principle that a package “belongs to” its implementor, and that noone other than the package’s developer should be making or modifying definitions on symbols in that package. Package locks are compatible with the ANSI Common Lisp standard, which states that the consequences of redefining functions in the COMMON-LISP package are undefined.
Violation of a package lock leads to a continuable error of type lisp::package-locked-error being signaled. The user may choose to ignore the lock and proceed, or to abort the computation. Two other restarts are available, one which disables all locks on all packages, and one to disable only the package-lock or package-definition-lock that was tripped.
The following transcript illustrates the behaviour seen when attempting to redefine a standard macro in the COMMON-LISP package, or to redefine a function in one of cmucl’s implementation-defined packages:
CL-USER> (defmacro 1+ (x) (* x 2))
Attempt to modify the locked package COMMON-LISP, by defining macro 1+
[Condition of type LISP::PACKAGE-LOCKED-ERROR]
Restarts:
0: [continue ] Ignore the lock and continue
1: [unlock-package] Disable the package's definition-lock then continue
2: [unlock-all ] Unlock all packages, then continue
3: [abort ] Return to Top-Level.
CL-USER> (defun ext:gc () t)
Attempt to modify the locked package EXTENSIONS, by redefining function GC
[Condition of type LISP::PACKAGE-LOCKED-ERROR]
Restarts:
0: [continue ] Ignore the lock and continue
1: [unlock-package] Disable package's definition-lock, then continue
2: [unlock-all ] Disable all package locks, then continue
3: [abort ] Return to Top-Level.
The following transcript illustrates the behaviour seen when an attempt to modify the structure of a package is made:
CL-USER> (unexport 'load-foreign :ext)
Attempt to modify the locked package EXTENSIONS, by unexporting symbols LOAD-FOREIGN
[Condition of type lisp::package-locked-error]
Restarts:
0: [continue ] Ignore the lock and continue
1: [unlock-package] Disable package's lock then continue
2: [unlock-all ] Unlock all packages, then continue
3: [abort ] Return to Top-Level.
The COMMON-LISP package and the cmucl-specific implementation packages are locked on startup. Users can lock their own packages by using the ext:package-lock and ext:package-definition-lock accessors.
A package’s locks can be enabled or disabled by using the ext:package-lock and ext:package-definition-lock accessors, as follows:
(setf (ext:package-lock (find-package "UNIX")) nil) (setf (ext:package-definition-lock (find-package "UNIX")) nil)
This function is an accessor for a package’s structural lock, which protects it against modifications to its list of exported symbols.
This function is an accessor for a package’s definition-lock, which protects symbols in that package from redefinition. As well as protecting the symbol’s fdefinition from change, attempts to change the symbol’s definition using defstruct, defclass or deftype will be trapped.
This macro can be used to execute forms with all package locks (both structure and definition locks) disabled.
This function disables both structure and definition locks on all currently defined packages. Note that package locks are reset when cmucl is restarted, so the effect of this function is limited to the current session.
The ed function invokes the Hemlock editor which is described in Hemlock User’s Manual and Hemlock Command Implementor’s Manual. Most users at CMU prefer to use Hemlock’s slave Common Lisp mechanism which provides an interactive buffer for the read-eval-print loop and editor commands for evaluating and compiling text from a buffer into the slave Common Lisp. Since the editor runs in the Common Lisp, using slaves keeps users from trashing their editor by developing in the same Common Lisp with Hemlock.
cmucl uses either a stop-and-copy garbage collector or a generational, mostly copying garbage collector. Which collector is available depends on the platform and the features of the platform. The stop-and-copy GC is available on all RISC platforms. The x86 platform supports a conservative stop-and-copy collector, which is now rarely used, and a generational conservative collector. On the Sparc platform, both the stop-and-copy GC and the generational GC are available, but the stop-and-copy GC is deprecated in favor of the generational GC.
The generational GC is available if *features* contains :gencgc.
The following functions invoke the garbage collector or control whether automatic garbage collection is in effect:
This function runs the garbage collector. If ext:*gc-verbose* is non-nil, then it invokes ext:*gc-notify-before* before GC’ing and ext:*gc-notify-after* afterwards.
verbose-p indicates whether GC statistics are printed or not.
This function inhibits automatic garbage collection. After calling it, the system will not GC unless you call ext:gc or ext:gc-on.
This function reinstates automatic garbage collection. If the system would have GC’ed while automatic GC was inhibited, then this will call ext:gc.
The following variables control the behavior of the garbage collector:
cmucl automatically GC’s whenever the amount of memory allocated to dynamic objects exceeds the value of an internal variable. After each GC, the system sets this internal variable to the amount of dynamic space in use at that point plus the value of the variable ext:*bytes-consed-between-gcs*. The default value is 2000000.
This variable controls whether ext:gc invokes the functions in ext:*gc-notify-before* and ext:*gc-notify-after*. If *gc-verbose* is nil, ext:gc foregoes printing any messages. The default value is T.
This variable’s value is a function that should notify the user that the system is about to GC. It takes one argument, the amount of dynamic space in use before the GC measured in bytes. The default value of this variable is a function that prints a message similar to the following:
[GC threshold exceeded with 2,107,124 bytes in use. Commencing GC.]
This variable’s value is a function that should notify the user when a GC finishes. The function must take three arguments, the amount of dynamic spaced retained by the GC, the amount of dynamic space freed, and the new threshold which is the minimum amount of space in use before the next GC will occur. All values are byte quantities. The default value of this variable is a function that prints a message similar to the following:
[GC completed with 25,680 bytes retained and 2,096,808 bytes freed.] [GC will next occur when at least 2,025,680 bytes are in use.]
Note that a garbage collection will not happen at exactly the new threshold printed by the default ext:*gc-notify-after* function. The system periodically checks whether this threshold has been exceeded, and only then does a garbage collection.
This variable’s value is either a function of one argument or nil. When the system has triggered an automatic GC, if this variable is a function, then the system calls the function with the amount of dynamic space currently in use (measured in bytes). If the function returns nil, then the GC occurs; otherwise, the system inhibits automatic GC as if you had called ext:gc-off. The writer of this hook is responsible for knowing when automatic GC has been turned off and for calling or providing a way to call ext:gc-on. The default value of this variable is nil.
These variables’ values are lists of functions to call before or after any GC occurs. The system provides these purely for side-effect, and the functions take no arguments.
Generational GC also supports some additional functions and variables to control it.
This function runs the garbage collector. If ext:*gc-verbose* is non-nil, then it invokes ext:*gc-notify-before* before GC’ing and ext:*gc-notify-after* afterwards.
- verbose
- Print GC statistics if non-NIL.
- gen
- The number of generations to be collected.
- full
- If non-NIL, a full collection of all generations is performed.
Returns statistics about the generation, as multiple values:
- Bytes allocated in this generation
- The GC trigger for this generation. When this many bytes have been allocated, a GC is started automatically.
- The number of bytes consed between GCs.
- The number of GCs that have been done on this generation. This is reset to zero when the generation is raised.
- The trigger age, which is the maximum number of GCs to perform before this generation is raised.
- The total number of bytes allocated to this generation.
- Average age of the objects in this generations. The average age is the cumulative bytes allocated divided by current number of bytes allocated.
Sets the GC trigger value for the specified generation.
Sets the GC trigger age for the specified generation.
Sets the minimum average memory age for the specified generation. If the computed memory age is below this, GC is not performed, which helps prevent a GC when a large number of new live objects have been added in which case a GC would usually be a waste of time.
A weak pointer provides a way to maintain a reference to an object without preventing an object from being garbage collected. If the garbage collector discovers that the only pointers to an object are weak pointers, then it breaks the weak pointers and deallocates the object.
make-weak-pointer returns a weak pointer to an object. weak-pointer-value follows a weak pointer, returning the two values: the object pointed to (or nil if broken) and a boolean value which is nil if the pointer has been broken, and true otherwise.
Finalization provides a “hook” that is triggered when the garbage collector reclaims an object. It is usually used to recover non-Lisp resources that were allocated to implement the finalized Lisp object. For example, when a unix file-descriptor stream is collected, finalization is used to close the underlying file descriptor.
This function registers object for finalization. function is called with no arguments when object is reclaimed. Normally function will be a closure over the underlying state that needs to be freed, e.g. the unix file descriptor in the fd-stream case. Note that function must not close over object itself, as this prevents the object from ever becoming garbage.
This function cancel any finalization request for object.
The describe function prints useful information about object on stream, which defaults to *standard-output*. For any object, describe will print out the type. Then it prints other information based on the type of object. The types which are presently handled are:
- hash-table
- describe prints the number of entries currently in the hash table and the number of buckets currently allocated.
- function
- describe prints a list of the function’s name (if any) and its formal parameters. If the name has function documentation, then it will be printed. If the function is compiled, then the file where it is defined will be printed as well.
- fixnum
- describe prints whether the integer is prime or not.
- symbol
- The symbol’s value, properties, and documentation are printed. If the symbol has a function definition, then the function is described.
If there is anything interesting to be said about some component of the object, describe will invoke itself recursively to describe that object. The level of recursion is indicated by indenting output.
A number of switches can be used to control describe’s behavior.
The maximum level of recursive description allowed. Initially two.
The number of spaces to indent for each level of recursive description, initially three.
The values of *print-level* and *print-length* during description. Initially two and five.
cmucl has both a graphical inspector that uses the X Window System, and a simple terminal-based inspector.
inspect calls the inspector on the optional argument object. If object is unsupplied, inspect immediately returns nil. Otherwise, the behavior of inspect depends on whether Lisp is running under X. When inspect is eventually exited, it returns some selected Lisp object.
cmucl has an interface to Motif which is functionally similar to CLM, but works better in cmucl. This interface is documented in separate manuals CMUCL Motif Toolkit and Design Notes on the Motif Toolkit, which are distributed with cmucl.
This motif interface has been used to write the inspector and graphical debugger. There is also a Lisp control panel with a simple file management facility, apropos and inspector dialogs, and controls for setting global options. See the interface and toolkit packages.
This function creates a control panel for the Lisp process.
When the graphical interface is loaded, this variable controls whether it is used by inspect and the error system. If the value is :graphics (the default) and the DISPLAY environment variable is defined, the graphical inspector and debugger will be invoked by inspect or when an error is signalled. Possible values are :graphics and tty. If the value is :graphics, but there is no X display, then we quietly use the TTY interface.
If X is unavailable, a terminal inspector is invoked. The TTY inspector is a crude interface to describe which allows objects to be traversed and maintains a history. This inspector prints information about and object and a numbered list of the components of the object. The command-line based interface is a normal read–eval–print loop, but an integer n descends into the n’th component of the current object, and symbols with these special names are interpreted as commands:
As in standard Common Lisp, this function loads a file containing source or object code into the running Lisp. Several CMU extensions have been made to load to conveniently support a variety of program file organizations. filename may be a wildcard pathname such as *.lisp, in which case all matching files are loaded.
If filename has a pathname-type (or extension), then that exact file is loaded. If the file has no extension, then this tells load to use a heuristic to load the “right” file. The *load-source-types* and *load-object-types* variables below are used to determine the default source and object file types. If only the source or the object file exists (but not both), then that file is quietly loaded. Similarly, if both the source and object file exist, and the object file is newer than the source file, then the object file is loaded. The value of the if-source-newer argument is used to determine what action to take when both the source and object files exist, but the object file is out of date:
- :load-object
- The object file is loaded even though the source file is newer.
- :load-source
- The source file is loaded instead of the older object file.
- :compile
- The source file is compiled and then the new object file is loaded.
- :query
- The user is asked a yes or no question to determine whether the source or object file is loaded.
This argument defaults to the value of ext:*load-if-source-newer* (initially :load-object.)
The contents argument can be used to override the heuristic (based on the file extension) that normally determines whether to load the file as a source file or an object file. If non-null, this argument must be either :source or :binary, which forces loading in source and binary mode, respectively. You really shouldn’t ever need to use this argument.
These variables are lists of possible pathname-type values for source and object files to be passed to load. These variables are only used when the file passed to load has no type; in this case, the possible source and object types are used to default the type in order to determine the names of the source and object files.
This variable determines the default value of the if-source-newer argument to load. Its initial value is :load-object.
cmucl supports an ANSI-compatible extension to enable reading of specialized arrays. Thus
* (setf *print-readably* nil) NIL * (make-array ’(2 2) :element-type ’(signed-byte 8)) #2A((0 0) (0 0)) * (setf *print-readably* t) T * (make-array ’(2 2) :element-type ’(signed-byte 8)) #A((SIGNED-BYTE 8) (2 2) ((0 0) (0 0))) * (type-of (read-from-string "#A((SIGNED-BYTE 8) (2 2) ((0 0) (0 0)))")) (SIMPLE-ARRAY (SIGNED-BYTE 8) (2 2)) * (setf *print-readably* nil) NIL * (type-of (read-from-string "#A((SIGNED-BYTE 8) (2 2) ((0 0) (0 0)))")) (SIMPLE-ARRAY (SIGNED-BYTE 8) (2 2))
If this variable is t (the default), then the reader merely prints a warning when an extra close parenthesis is detected (instead of signalling an error.)
On streams that support it, this function reads multiple bytes of data into a buffer. The buffer must be a simple-string or (simple-array (unsigned-byte 8) (*)). The argument nbytes specifies the desired number of bytes, and the return value is the number of bytes actually read.
- If eof-error-p is true, an end-of-file condition is signalled if end-of-file is encountered before count bytes have been read.
- If eof-error-p is false, read-n-bytes reads as much data is currently available (up to count bytes.) On pipes or similar devices, this function returns as soon as any data is available, even if the amount read is less than count and eof has not been hit. See also make-fd-stream.
cmucl includes a partial implementation of Simple Streams, a protocol that allows user-extensible streams1. The protocol was proposed by Franz, Inc. and is intended to replace the Gray Streams method of extending streams. Simple streams are distributed as a cmucl subsystem, that can be loaded into the image by saying
(require :simple-streams)
Note that CMUCL’s implementation of simple streams is incomplete, and in particular is currently missing support for the functions read-sequence and write-sequence. Please consult the Allegro Common Lisp documentation for more information on simple streams.
It is possible to run programs from Lisp by using the following function.
| extensions:run-program program args &key | :env :wait :pty :input |
| :if-input-does-not-exist | |
| :output :if-output-exists | |
| :error :if-error-exists | |
| :status-hook :external-format | |
| :element-type |
run-program runs program in a child process. Program should be a pathname or string naming the program. Args should be a list of strings which this passes to program as normal Unix parameters. For no arguments, specify args as nil. The value returned is either a process structure or nil. The process interface follows the description of run-program. If run-program fails to fork the child process, it returns nil.
Except for sharing file descriptors as explained in keyword argument descriptions, run-program closes all file descriptors in the child process before running the program. When you are done using a process, call process-close to reclaim system resources. You only need to do this when you supply :stream for one of :input, :output, or :error, or you supply :pty non-nil. You can call process-close regardless of whether you must to reclaim resources without penalty if you feel safer.
run-program accepts the following keyword arguments:
- :env
- This is an a-list mapping keywords and simple-strings. The default is ext:*environment-list*. If :env is specified, run-program uses the value given and does not combine the environment passed to Lisp with the one specified.
- :wait
- If non-nil (the default), wait until the child process terminates. If nil, continue running Lisp while the child process runs.
- :pty
- This should be one of t, nil, or a stream. If specified non-nil, the subprocess executes under a Unix PTY. If specified as a stream, the system collects all output to this pty and writes it to this stream. If specified as t, the process-pty slot contains a stream from which you can read the program’s output and to which you can write input for the program. The default is nil.
- :input
- This specifies how the program gets its input. If specified as a string, it is the name of a file that contains input for the child process. run-program opens the file as standard input. If specified as nil (the default), then standard input is the file /dev/null. If specified as t, the program uses the current standard input. This may cause some confusion if :wait is nil since two processes may use the terminal at the same time. If specified as :stream, then the process-input slot contains an output stream. Anything written to this stream goes to the program as input. :input may also be an input stream that already contains all the input for the process. In this case run-program reads all the input from this stream before returning, so this cannot be used to interact with the process. If :input is a string stream, it is up to the caller to call string-encode or other function to convert the string to the appropriate encoding. In either case, the least significant 8 bits of the char-code of each character is sent to the program.
- :if-input-does-not-exist
- This specifies what to do if the input file does not exist. The following values are valid: nil (the default) causes run-program to return nil without doing anything; :create creates the named file; and :error signals an error.
- :output
- This specifies what happens with the program’s output. If specified as a pathname, it is the name of a file that contains output the program writes to its standard output. If specified as nil (the default), all output goes to /dev/null. If specified as t, the program writes to the Lisp process’s standard output. This may cause confusion if :wait is nil since two processes may write to the terminal at the same time. If specified as :stream, then the process-output slot contains an input stream from which you can read the program’s output. :output can also be a stream in which case all output from the process is written to this stream. If :output is a string-stream, each octet read from the program is converted to a character using code-char. It is up to the caller to convert this using the appropriate external format to create the desired encoded string.
- :if-output-exists
- This specifies what to do if the output file already exists. The following values are valid: nil causes run-program to return nil without doing anything; :error (the default) signals an error; :supersede overwrites the current file; and :append appends all output to the file.
- :error
- This is similar to :output, except the file becomes the program’s standard error. Additionally, :error can be :output in which case the program’s error output is routed to the same place specified for :output. If specified as :stream, the process-error contains a stream similar to the process-output slot when specifying the :output argument.
- :if-error-exists
- This specifies what to do if the error output file already exists. It accepts the same values as :if-output-exists.
- :status-hook
- This specifies a function to call whenever the process changes status. This is especially useful when specifying :wait as nil. The function takes the process as a required argument.
- :external-format
- This specifies the external format to use for streams created for run-program. This does not apply to string streams passed in as :input or :output parameters.
- :element-type
- If streams are created run-program, use this as the :element-type for the stream. Defaults to BASE-CHAR.
The following functions interface the process returned by run-program:
This function returns t if thing is a process. Otherwise it returns nil
This function returns the process ID, an integer, for the process.
This function returns the current status of process, which is one of :running, :stopped, :exited, or :signaled.
This function returns either the exit code for process, if it is :exited, or the termination signal process if it is :signaled. The result is undefined for processes that are still alive.
This function returns t if someone used a Unix signal to terminate the process and caused it to dump a Unix core image.
This function returns either the two-way stream connected to process’s Unix PTY connection or nil if there is none.
If the corresponding stream was created, these functions return the input, output or error fd-stream. nil is returned if there is no stream.
This function returns the current function to call whenever process’s status changes. This function takes the process as a required argument. process-status-hook is setf’able.
This function returns annotations supplied by users, and it is setf’able. This is available solely for users to associate information with process without having to build a-lists or hash tables of process structures.
This function waits for process to finish. If check-for-stopped is non-nil, this also returns when process stops.
This function sends the Unix signal to process. Signal should be the number of the signal or a keyword with the Unix name (for example, :sigsegv). Whom should be one of the following:
- :pid
- This is the default, and it indicates sending the signal to process only.
- :process-group
- This indicates sending the signal to process’s group.
- :pty-process-group
- This indicates sending the signal to the process group currently in the foreground on the Unix PTY connected to process. This last option is useful if the running program is a shell, and you wish to signal the program running under the shell, not the shell itself. If process-pty of process is nil, using this option is an error.
This function returns t if process’s status is either :running or :stopped.
This function closes all the streams associated with process. When you are done using a process, call this to reclaim system resources.
A mechanism has been provided to save a running Lisp core image and to later restore it. This is convenient if you don’t want to load several files into a Lisp when you first start it up. The main problem is the large size of each saved Lisp image, typically at least 20 megabytes.
| extensions:save-lisp file &key | :purify :root-structures :init-function |
| :load-init-file :print-herald :site-init | |
| :process-command-line :batch-mode :executable |
The save-lisp function saves the state of the currently running Lisp core image in file. The keyword arguments have the following meaning:
- :purify
- If non-nil (the default), the core image is purified before it is saved (see purify.) This reduces the amount of work the garbage collector must do when the resulting core image is being run. Also, if more than one Lisp is running on the same machine, this maximizes the amount of memory that can be shared between the two processes.
- :root-structures
- This should be a list of the main entry points in any newly loaded systems. This need not be supplied, but locality and/or GC performance will be better if they are. Meaningless if :purify is nil. See purify.
- :init-function
- This is the function that starts running when the created core file is resumed. The default function simply invokes the top level read-eval-print loop. If the function returns the lisp will exit.
- :load-init-file
- If non-NIL, then load an init file; either the one specified on the command line or “init.fasl-type”, or, if “init.fasl-type” does not exist, init.lisp from the user’s home directory. If the init file is found, it is loaded into the resumed core file before the read-eval-print loop is entered.
- :site-init
- If non-NIL, the name of the site init file to quietly load. The default is library:site-init. No error is signalled if the file does not exist.
- :print-herald
- If non-NIL (the default), then print out the standard Lisp herald when starting.
- :process-command-line
- If non-NIL (the default), processes the command line switches and performs the appropriate actions.
- :batch-mode
- If NIL (the default), then the presence of the -batch command-line switch will invoke batch-mode processing upon resuming the saved core. If non-NIL, the produced core will always be in batch-mode, regardless of any command-line switches.
- :executable
- If non-NIL, an executable image is created. Normally, cmucl consists of the C runtime along with a core file image. When :executable is non-NIL, the core file is incorporated into the C runtime, so one (large) executable is created instead of a new separate core file.
This feature is only available on some platforms, as indicated by having the feature :executable. Currently only x86 ports and the solaris/sparc port have this feature.
To resume a saved file, type:
lisp -core file
However, if the :executable option was specified, you can just use
file
since the executable contains the core file within the executable.
This function optimizes garbage collection by moving all currently live objects into non-collected storage. Once statically allocated, the objects can never be reclaimed, even if all pointers to them are dropped. This function should generally be called after a large system has been loaded and initialized.
- :root-structures
- is an optional list of objects which should be copied first to maximize locality. This should be a list of the main entry points for the resulting core image. The purification process tries to localize symbols, functions, etc., in the core image so that paging performance is improved. The default value is NIL which means that Lisp objects will still be localized but probably not as optimally as they could be.
defstruct structures defined with the (:pure t) option are moved into read-only storage, further reducing GC cost. List and vector slots of pure structures are also moved into read-only storage.
- :environment-name
- is gratuitous documentation for the compacted version of the current global environment (as seen in c::*info-environment*.) If nil is supplied, then environment compaction is inhibited.
In Common Lisp quite a few aspects of pathname semantics are left to the implementation.
Unix pathnames are always parsed with a unix-host object as the host and nil as the device. The last two dots (.) in the namestring mark the type and version, however if the first character is a dot, it is considered part of the name. If the last character is a dot, then the pathname has the empty-string as its type. The type defaults to nil and the version defaults to :newest.
(defun parse (x) (values (pathname-name x) (pathname-type x) (pathname-version x))) (parse "foo") ==> "foo", NIL, NIL (parse "foo.bar") ==> "foo", "bar", NIL (parse ".foo") ==> ".foo", NIL, NIL (parse ".foo.bar") ==> ".foo", "bar", NIL (parse "..") ==> NIL, NIL, NIL (parse "foo.") ==> "foo", "", NIL (parse "foo.bar.~1~") ==> "foo", "bar", 1 (parse "foo.bar.baz") ==> "foo.bar", "baz", NIL
The directory of pathnames beginning with a slash (or a search-list, see section 2.16.4) is starts :absolute, others start with :relative. The .. directory is parsed as :up; there is no namestring for :back:
(pathname-directory "/usr/foo/bar.baz") ==> (:ABSOLUTE "usr" "foo") (pathname-directory "../foo/bar.baz") ==> (:RELATIVE :UP "foo")
Wildcards are supported in Unix pathnames. If ‘*’ is specified for a part of a pathname, that is parsed as :wild. ‘**’ can be used as a directory name to indicate :wild-inferiors. Filesystem operations treat :wild-inferiors the same as :wild, but pathname pattern matching (e.g. for logical pathname translation, see section 2.16.3) matches any number of directory parts with ‘**’ (see see section 2.17.1.)
‘*’ embedded in a pathname part matches any number of characters. Similarly, ‘?’ matches exactly one character, and ‘[a,b]’ matches the characters ‘a’ or ‘b’. These pathname parts are parsed as pattern objects.
Backslash can be used as an escape character in namestring parsing to prevent the next character from being treated as a wildcard. Note that if typed in a string constant, the backslash must be doubled, since the string reader also uses backslash as a quote:
(pathname-name "foo\\*bar") => "foo*bar"
If a namestring begins with the name of a defined logical pathname host followed by a colon, then it will be parsed as a logical pathname. Both ‘*’ and ‘**’ wildcards are implemented. load-logical-pathname-translations on name looks for a logical host definition file in library:name.translations. Note that library: designates the search list (see section 2.16.4) initialized to the cmucl lib/ directory, not a logical pathname. The format of the file is a single list of two-lists of the from and to patterns:
(("foo;*.text" "/usr/ram/foo/*.txt")
("foo;*.lisp" "/usr/ram/foo/*.l"))
Search lists are an extension to Common Lisp pathnames. They serve a function somewhat similar to Common Lisp logical pathnames, but work more like Unix PATH variables. Search lists are used for two purposes:
Each search list has an associated list of directories (represented as pathnames with no name or type component.) The namestring for any relative pathname may be prefixed with “slist:”, indicating that the pathname is relative to the search list slist (instead of to the current working directory.) Once qualified with a search list, the pathname is no longer considered to be relative.
When a search list qualified pathname is passed to a file-system operation such as open, load or truename, each directory in the search list is successively used as the root of the pathname until the file is located. When a file is written to a search list directory, the file is always written to the first directory in the list.
These search-lists are initialized from the Unix environment or when Lisp was built:
It can be useful to redefine these search-lists, for example, library: can be augmented to allow logical pathname translations to be located, and target: can be redefined to point to where cmucl system sources are locally installed.
These operations define and access search-list definitions. A search-list name may be parsed into a pathname before the search-list is actually defined, but the search-list must be defined before it can actually be used in a filesystem operation.
This function returns the list of directories associated with the search list name. If name is not a defined search list, then an error is signaled. When set with setf, the list of directories is changed to the new value. If the new value is just a namestring or pathname, then it is interpreted as a one-element list. Note that (unlike Unix pathnames), search list names are case-insensitive.
search-list-defined-p returns t if name is a defined search list name, nil otherwise. clear-search-list make the search list name undefined.
This macro provides an interface to search list resolution. The body forms are executed with var bound to each successive possible expansion for name. If name does not contain a search-list, then the body is executed exactly once. Everything is wrapped in a block named nil, so return can be used to terminate early. The result form (default nil) is evaluated to determine the result of the iteration.
The search list code: can be defined as follows:
(setf (ext:search-list "code:") ’("/usr/lisp/code/"))
It is now possible to use code: as an abbreviation for the directory /usr/lisp/code/ in all file operations. For example, you can now specify code:eval.lisp to refer to the file /usr/lisp/code/eval.lisp.
To obtain the value of a search-list name, use the function search-list as follows:
(ext:search-list name)
Where name is the name of a search list as described above. For example, calling ext:search-list on code: as follows:
(ext:search-list "code:")
returns the list ("/usr/lisp/code/").
cmucl provides a number of extensions and optional features beyond those required by the Common Lisp specification.
Unix filesystem operations such as open will accept wildcard pathnames that match a single file (of course, directory allows any number of matches.) Filesystem operations treat :wild-inferiors the same as :wild.
The keyword arguments to this Common Lisp function are a cmucl extension. The arguments (all default to t) have the following functions:
- :all
- Include files beginning with dot such as .login, similar to “ls -a”.
- :check-for-subdirs
- Test whether files are directories, similar to “ls -F”.
- :truenamep
- Call truename on each file, which expands out all symbolic links. Note that this option can easily result in pathnames being returned which have a different directory from the one in the wildname argument.
- :follow-links
- Follow symbolic links when searching for matching directories.
Print a directory of wildname listing to stream (default *standard-output*.) :all and :verbose both default to nil and correspond to the “-a” and “-l” options of ls. Normally this function returns nil, but if :return-list is true, a list of the matched pathnames are returned.
Attempt to complete a file name to the longest unambiguous prefix. If supplied, directory from :defaults is used as the “working directory” when doing completion. :ignore-types is a list of strings of the pathname types (a.k.a. extensions) that should be disregarded as possible matches (binary file names, etc.)
Return a list of pathnames for all the possible completions of pathname with respect to defaults.
Return the current working directory as a pathname. If set with setf, set the working directory.
This function accepts a pathname and returns t if the current process can write it, and nil otherwise.
This function converts pathname into a string that can be used with UNIX system calls. Search-lists and wildcards are expanded. for-input controls the treatment of search-lists: when true (the default) and the file exists anywhere on the search-list, then that absolute pathname is returned; otherwise the first element of the search-list is used as the directory.
Functions are provided to allow parsing strings containing time information and printing time in various formats are available.
| extensions:parse-time time-string &key | :error-on-mismatch :default-seconds |
| :default-minutes :default-hours | |
| :default-day :default-month | |
| :default-year :default-zone | |
| :default-weekday |
parse-time accepts a string containing a time (e.g., "Jan 12, 1952") and returns the universal time if it is successful. If it is unsuccessful and the keyword argument :error-on-mismatch is non-nil, it signals an error. Otherwise it returns nil. The other keyword arguments have the following meaning:
- :default-seconds
- specifies the default value for the seconds value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is 0.
- :default-minutes
- specifies the default value for the minutes value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is 0.
- :default-hours
- specifies the default value for the hours value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is 0.
- :default-day
- specifies the default value for the day value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is the current day.
- :default-month
- specifies the default value for the month value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is the current month.
- :default-year
- specifies the default value for the year value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is the current year.
- :default-zone
- specifies the default value for the time zone value if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is the current time zone.
- :default-weekday
- specifies the default value for the day of the week if one is not provided by time-string. The default value is the current day of the week.
Any of the above keywords can be given the value :current which means to use the current value as determined by a call to the operating system.
| extensions:format-universal-time dest universal-time | |
| &key | :timezone |
| :style :date-first | |
| :print-seconds :print-meridian | |
| :print-timezone :print-weekday |
[Function]
extensions:format-decoded-time dest seconds minutes hours day month year &key :timezone :style :date-first :print-seconds :print-meridian :print-timezone :print-weekday format-universal-time formats the time specified by universal-time. format-decoded-time formats the time specified by seconds, minutes, hours, day, month, and year. Dest is any destination accepted by the format function. The keyword arguments have the following meaning:
- :timezone
- is an integer specifying the hours west of Greenwich. :timezone defaults to the current time zone.
- :style
- specifies the style to use in formatting the time. The legal values are:
- :short
- specifies to use a numeric date.
- :long
- specifies to format months and weekdays as words instead of numbers.
- :abbreviated
- is similar to long except the words are abbreviated.
- :government
- is similar to abbreviated, except the date is of the form “day month year” instead of “month day, year”.
- :date-first
- if non-nil (default) will place the date first. Otherwise, the time is placed first.
- :print-seconds
- if non-nil (default) will format the seconds as part of the time. Otherwise, the seconds will be omitted.
- :print-meridian
- if non-nil (default) will format “AM” or “PM” as part of the time. Otherwise, the “AM” or “PM” will be omitted.
- :print-timezone
- if non-nil (default) will format the time zone as part of the time. Otherwise, the time zone will be omitted.
- :print-weekday
- if non-nil (default) will format the weekday as part of date. Otherwise, the weekday will be omitted.
Common Lisp includes a random number generator as a standard part of the language; however, the implementation of the generator is not specified.
On all platforms, the random number is MT-19937 generator as indicated by :rand-mt19937 being in *features*. This is a Lisp implementation of the MT-19937 generator of Makoto Matsumoto and T. Nishimura. We refer the reader to their paper2 or to their website.
When cmucl starts up, *random-state* is initialized by reading 627 words from /dev/urandom, when available. If /dev/urandom is not available, the universal time is used to initialize *random-state*. The initialization is done as given in Matsumoto’s paper.
cmucl supports Lisp threads for the x86 platform.
The cmucl project maintains a collection of useful or interesting programs written by users of our system. The library is in lib/contrib/. Two files there that users should read are:
Hemlock has a command Library Entry that displays a list of the current library entries in an editor buffer. There are mode specific commands that display catalog descriptions and load entries. This is a simple and convenient way to browse the library.
Define lists starting with the symbol name as a new extended function name syntax.body is executed with var bound to an actual function name of that form, and should return two values:
- A generalized boolean that is true if var is a valid function name.
- A symbol that can be used as a block name in functions whose name is var. (For some sorts of function names it might make sense to return nil for the block name, or just return one value.)
Users should not define function names starting with a symbol that cmucl might be using internally. It is therefore advisable to only define new function names starting with a symbol from a user-defined package.
Returns two values:
- True if name is a valid function name.
- A symbol that can be used as a block name in functions whose name is name. This can be nil for some function names.
The standard requires that an error is signaled when a generic function is called and
| pcl:no-primary-method gf &rest args |
n cmucl, this generic function is called in the above erroneous cases. The parameter gf is the generic function being called, and args is a list of actual arguments in the generic function call.
| pcl:no-primary-method (gf standard-generic-function) &rest args |
his method signals a continuable error of type pcl:no-primary-method-error.
Declared slot types are used when
Example:
(defclass foo ()
((a :type fixnum)))
(defmethod bar ((object foo) value)
(with-slots (a) object
(setf a value)))
(defmethod baz ((object foo))
(< (slot-value object ’a) 10))
In method bar, and with a suitable safety setting, a type error will occur if value is not a fixnum. In method baz, a fixnum comparison can be used by the compiler.
Slot type checking can be turned off by setting this variable to nil, which can be useful for compiling code containing incorrect slot type declarations.
The declaration ext:slots is used for optimizing slot access in methods.
declare (ext:slots specifier*) specifier ::= (quality class-entry*) quality ::= SLOT-BOUNDP | INLINE class-entry ::= class | (class slot-name*) class ::= the name of a class slot-name ::= the name of a slot
The slot-boundp quality specifies that all or some slots of a class are always bound.
The inline quality specifies that access to all or some slots of a class should be inlined, using compile-time knowledge of class layouts.
Example:
(defclass foo () (a b)) (defmethod bar ((x foo)) (declare (ext:slots (slot-boundp foo))) (list (slot-value x ’a) (slot-value x ’b)))
The slot-boundp declaration in method bar specifies that the slots a and b accessed through parameter x in the scope of the declaration are always bound, because parameter x is specialized on class foo to which the slot-boundp declaration applies. The PCL-generated code for the slot-value forms will thus not contain tests for the slots being bound or not. The consequences are undefined should one of the accessed slots not be bound.
Example:
(defclass foo () (a b)) (defmethod bar ((x foo)) (declare (ext:slots (inline (foo a)))) (list (slot-value x ’a) (slot-value x ’b)))
The inline declaration in method bar tells PCL to use compile-time knowledge of slot locations for accessing slot a of class foo, in the scope of the declaration.
Class foo must be known at compile time for this optimization to be possible. PCL prints a warning and uses normal slot access If the class is not defined at compile time.
If a class is proclaimed to use inline slot access before it is defined, the class is defined at compile time. Example:
(declaim (ext:slots (inline (foo slot-a)))) (defclass foo () ...) (defclass bar (foo) ...)
Class foo will be defined at compile time because it is declared to use inline slot access; methods accessing slot slot-a of foo will use inline slot access if otherwise possible. Class bar will be defined at compile time because its superclass foo is declared to use inline slot access. PCL uses compile-time information from subclasses to warn about situations where using inline slot access is not possible.
Normal slot access will be used if PCL finds, at method compilation time, that
When the declaration is used to optimize calls to slot accessor generic functions in methods, as opposed to slot-value or (setf slot-value), the optimization is additionally not used if
The consequences are undefined if the compile-time environment is not the same as the run-time environment in these respects, or if the definition of class foo or any subclass of foo is changed in an incompatible way, that is, if slot locations change.
The effect of the inline optimization combined with the slot-boundp optimization is that CLOS slot access becomes as fast as structure slot access, which is an order of magnitude faster than normal CLOS slot access.
This variable controls if inline slot access optimizations are performed. It is true by default.
Methods using inline slot access can be automatically recompiled after class changes. Two declarations control which methods are automatically recompiled.
declaim (ext:auto-compile specifier*) declaim (ext:not-auto-compile specifier*) specifier ::= gf-name | (gf-name qualifier* (specializer*)) gf-name ::= the name of a generic function qualifier ::= a method qualifier specializer ::= a method specializer
If no specifier is given, auto-compilation is by default done/not done for all methods of all generic functions using inline slot access; current default is that it is not done. This global policy can be overridden on a generic function and method basis. If specifier is a generic function name, it applies to all methods of that generic function.
Examples:
(declaim (ext:auto-compile foo)) (defmethod foo :around ((x bar)) ...)
The around-method foo will be automatically recompiled because the declamation applies to all methods with name foo.
(declaim (ext:auto-compile (foo (bar)))) (defmethod foo :around ((x bar)) ...) (defmethod foo ((x bar)) ...)
The around-method will not be automatically recompiled, but the primary method will.
(declaim (ext:auto-compile foo)) (declaim (ext:not-auto-compile (foo :around (bar))) (defmethod foo :around ((x bar)) ...) (defmethod foo ((x bar)) ...)
The around-method will not be automatically recompiled, because it is explicitly declaimed not to be. The primary method will be automatically recompiled because the first declamation applies to it.
Auto-recompilation works by recording method bodies using inline slot access. When PCL determines that a recompilation is necessary, a defmethod form is constructed and evaluated.
Auto-compilation can only be done for methods defined in a null lexical environment. PCL prints a warning and doesn’t record the method body if a method using inline slot access is defined in a non-null lexical environment. Instead of doing a recompilation on itself, PCL will then print a warning that the method must be recompiled manually when classes are changed.
When a generic function is called, an effective method is constructed from applicable methods. The effective method is called with the original arguments, and itself calls applicable methods according to the generic function’s method combination. Some of the function call overhead in effective methods can be removed by inlining methods in effective methods, at the expense of increased code size.
Inlining of methods is controlled by the usual inline declaration. In the following example, both foo methods shown will be inlined in effective methods:
(declaim (inline (method foo (foo))
(method foo :before (foo))))
(defmethod foo ((x foo)) ...)
(defmethod foo :before ((x foo)) ...)
Please note that this form of inlining has no noticeable effect for effective methods that consist of a primary method only, which doesn’t have keyword arguments. In such cases, PCL uses the primary method directly for the effective method.
When the definition of an inlined method is changed, effective methods are not automatically updated to reflect the change. This is just as it is when inlining normal functions. Different from the normal case is that users do not have direct access to effective methods, as it would be the case when a function is inlined somewhere else. Because of this, the function pcl:flush-emf-cache is provided for forcing such an update of effective methods.
Flush cached effective method functions. If gf is supplied, it should be a generic function metaobject or the name of a generic function, and this function flushes all cached effective methods for the given generic function. If gf is not supplied, all cached effective methods are flushed.
If true, the default, perform method inlining as described above. If false, don’t.
When a generic function is called, the generic function’s discriminating function computes the set of methods applicable to actual arguments and constructs an effective method function from applicable methods, using the generic function’s method combination.
Effective methods can be precomputed at method load time instead of when the generic function is called depending on the value of pcl:*max-emf-precomputation-methods*.
If nonzero, the default value is 100, precompute effective methods when methods are loaded, and the method’s generic function has less than the specified number of methods.If zero, compute effective methods only when the generic function is called.
Support for sealing classes and generic functions have been implemented. Please note that this interface is subject to change.
Seal name with respect to the given specifiers; name can be the name of a class or generic-function.Supported specifiers are :subclasses for classes, which prevents changing subclasses of a class, and :methods which prevents changing the methods of a generic function.
Sealing violations signal an error of type pcl:sealed-error.
Remove seals from name-or-object.
Methods can be traced with trace, using function names of the form (method <name> <qualifiers> <specializers>). Example:
(defmethod foo ((x integer)) x) (defmethod foo :before ((x integer)) x) (trace (method foo (integer))) (trace (method foo :before (integer))) (untrace (method foo :before (integer)))
trace and untrace also allow a name specifier :methods gf-form for tracing all methods of a generic function:
(trace :methods ’foo) (untrace :methods ’foo)
Methods can also be specified for the :wherein option to trace. Because this option is a name or a list of names, methods must be specified as a list. Thus, to trace all calls of foo from the method bar specialized on integer argument, use
(trace foo :wherein ((method bar (integer))))
Before and after methods are supported as well:
(trace foo :wherein ((method bar :before (integer))))
Method profiling is done analogously to trace:
(defmethod foo ((x integer)) x) (defmethod foo :before ((x integer)) x) (profile:profile (method foo (integer))) (profile:profile (method foo :before (integer))) (profile:unprofile (method foo :before (integer))) (profile:profile :methods ’foo) (profile:unprofile :methods ’foo) (profile:profile-all :methods t)
This variable controls compilation of interpreted method functions, e.g. for methods defined interactively at the REPL. Default is true, that is, method functions are compiled.
This section describes some of the known differences between cmucl and ANSI Common Lisp. Some may be non-compliance issues; same may be extensions.
As an extension, cmucl allows constantly to accept more than one value which are returned as multiple values.
Function wrappers, fwrappers for short, are a facility for efficiently encapsulating functions3.
Functions in cmucl are represented by kernel:fdefn objects. Each fdefn object contains a reference to its function’s actual code, which we call the function’s primary function.
A function wrapper replaces the primary function in the fdefn object with a function of its own, and records the original function in an fwrapper object, a funcallable instance. Thus, when the function is called, the fwrapper gets called, which in turn might call the primary function, or a previously installed fwrapper that was found in the fdefn object when the second fwrapper was installed.
Example:
(use-package :fwrappers)
(define-fwrapper foo (x y)
(format t "x = ~s, y = ~s, user-data = ~s~%"
x y (fwrapper-user-data fwrapper))
(let ((value (call-next-function)))
(format t "value = ~s~%" value)
value))
(defun bar (x y)
(+ x y))
(fwrap ’bar #’foo :type ’foo :user-data 42)
(bar 1 2)
=>
x = 1, y = 2, user-data = 42
value = 3
3
Fwrappers are used in the implementation of trace and profile.
Please note that fdefinition always returns the primary definition of a function; if a function is fwrapped, fdefinition returns the primary function stored in the innermost fwrapper object. Likewise, if a function is fwrapped, (setf fdefinition) will set the primary function in the innermost fwrapper.
This macro is like defun, but defines a function named name that can be used as an fwrapper definition.In body, the symbol fwrapper is bound to the current fwrapper object.
The macro call-next-function can be used to invoke the next fwrapper, or the primary function that is being fwrapped. When called with no arguments, call-next-function invokes the next function with the original arguments passed to the fwrapper, unless you modify one of the parameters. When called with arguments, call-next-function invokes the next function with the given arguments.
This function wraps function function-name in an fwrapper fwrapper which was defined with define-fwrapper.The value of type, if supplied, is used as an identifying tag that can be used in various other operations.
The value of user-data is stored as user-supplied data in the fwrapper object that is created for the function encapsulation. User-data is accessible in the body of fwrappers defined with define-fwrapper as (fwrapper-user-data fwrapper).
Value is the fwrapper object created.
Remove fwrappers from the function named function-name. If type is supplied, remove fwrappers whose type is equal to type. If test is supplied, remove fwrappers satisfying test.
Find an fwrapper of function-name. If type is supplied, find an fwrapper whose type is equal to type. If test is supplied, find an fwrapper satisfying test.
Update the funcallable instance function of the fwrapper object fwrapper from the definition of its function that was defined with define-fwrapper. This can be used to update fwrappers after changing a define-fwrapper.
Update fwrappers of function-name; see update-fwrapper. If type is supplied, update fwrappers whose type is equal to type. If test is supplied, update fwrappers satisfying test.
Set function-names’s fwrappers to elements of the list fwrappers, which is assumed to be ordered from outermost to innermost. fwrappers null means remove all fwrappers.
Return a list of all fwrappers of function-name, ordered from outermost to innermost.
Prepend fwrapper fwrapper to the definition of function-name. Signal an error if function-name is an undefined function.
Remove fwrapper fwrapper from the definition of function-name. Signal an error if function-name is an undefined function.
Evaluate body with var bound to consecutive fwrappers of fdefn. Return result at the end. Note that fdefn must be an fdefn object. You can use kernel:fdefn-or-lose, for instance, to get the fdefn object from a function name.
Note: As of the 19a release, dynamic-extent is unfortunately disabled by default. It is known to cause some issues with CLX and Hemlock. The cause is not known, but causes random errors and brokeness. Enable at your own risk. However, it is safe enough to build all of CMUCL without problems.
On x86 and sparc, cmucl can exploit dynamic-extent declarations by allocating objects on the stack instead of the heap.
You can tell cmucl to trust or not trust dynamic-extent declarations by setting the variable *trust-dynamic-extent-declarations*.
If the value of *trust-dynamic-extent-declarations* is NIL, dynamic-extent declarations are effectively ignored.If the value of this variable is a function, the function is called with four arguments to determine if a dynamic-extent declaration should be trusted. The arguments are the safety, space, speed, and debug settings at the point where the dynamic-extent declaration is used. If the function returns true, the declaration is trusted, otherwise it is not trusted.
In all other cases, dynamic-extent declarations are trusted.
Please note that stack-allocation is inherently unsafe. If you make a mistake, and a stack-allocated object or part of it escapes, cmucl is likely to crash, or format your hard disk.
Rest argument lists can be allocated on the stack by declaring the rest argument variable dynamic-extent. Examples:
(defun foo (x &rest rest)
(declare (dynamic-extent rest))
...)
(defun bar ()
(lambda (&rest rest)
(declare (dynamic-extent rest))
...))
Closures for local functions can be allocated on the stack if the local function is declared dynamic-extent, and the closure appears as an argument in the call of a named function. In the example:
(defun foo (x)
(flet ((bar () x))
(declare (dynamic-extent #’bar))
(baz #’bar)))
the closure passed to function baz is allocated on the stack. Likewise in the example:
(defun foo (x)
(flet ((bar () x))
(baz #’bar)
(locally (declare (dynamic-extent #’bar))
(baz #’bar))))
Stack-allocation of closures can also automatically take place when calling certain known CL functions taking function arguments, for example some or find-if.
New conses allocated by list, list*, or cons which are used to initialize variables can be allocated from the stack if the variables are declared dynamic-extent. In the case of cons, only the outermost cons cell is allocated from the stack; this is an arbitrary restriction.
(let ((x (list 1 2))
(y (list* 1 2 x))
(z (cons 1 (cons 2 nil))))
(declare (dynamic-extent x y z))
...
(setq x (list 2 3))
...)
Please note that the setq of x in the example program assigns to x a list that is allocated from the heap. This is another arbitrary restriction that exists because other Lisps behave that way.
This section is mostly taken, with permission, from the documentation for SBCL.
Some numeric functions have a property: N lower bits of the result depend only on N lower bits of (all or some) arguments. If the compiler sees an expression of form (logand exp mask), where exp is a tree of such “good” functions and mask is known to be of type (unsigned-byte w), where w is a "good" width, all intermediate results will be cut to w bits (but it is not done for variables and constants!). This often results in an ability to use simple machine instructions for the functions.
Consider an example.
(defun i (x y) (declare (type (unsigned-byte 32) x y)) (ldb (byte 32 0) (logxor x (lognot y))))
The result of (lognot y) will be negative and of type (signed-byte 33), so a naive implementation on a 32-bit platform is unable to use 32-bit arithmetic here. But modular arithmetic optimizer is able to do it: because the result is cut down to 32 bits, the compiler will replace logxor and lognot with versions cutting results to 32 bits, and because terminals (here—expressions x and y) are also of type (unsigned-byte 32), 32-bit machine arithmetic can be used.
Currently “good” functions are +, -, *; logand, logior, logxor, lognot and their combinations; and ash with the positive second argument. “Good” widths are 32 on HPPA, MIPS, PPC, Sparc and X86 and 64 on Alpha. While it is possible to support smaller widths as well, currently it is not implemented.
A more extensive description of modular arithmetic can be found in the paper “Efficient Hardware Arithmetic in Common Lisp” by Alexey Dejneka, and Christophe Rhodes, to be published.
The behavior of require when called with only one argument is implementation-defined. In cmucl, functions from the list *module-provider-functions* are called in order with the stringified module name as the argument. The first function to return non-NIL is assumed to have loaded the module.
By default the functions module-provide-cmucl-defmodule and module-provide- cmucl-library are on this list of functions, in that order.
This is a list of functions taking a single argument. require calls each function in turn with the stringified module name. The first function to return non-NIL indicates that the module has been loaded. The remaining functions, if any, are not called.To add new providers, push the new provider function onto the beginning of this list.
Defines a module by registering the files that need to be loaded when the module is required. If name is a symbol, its print name is used after downcasing it.
This function is the module-provider for modules registered by a ext:defmodule form.
This function is the module-provider for cmucl’s libraries, including Gray streams, simple streams, CLX, CLM, Hemlock, etc.This function causes a file to be loaded whose name is formed by merging the search-list “modules:” and the concatenation of module-name with the suffix “-LIBRARY”. Note that both the module-name and the suffix are each, separately, converted from :case :common to :case :local. This merged name will be probed with both a .lisp and .fasl extensions, calling LOAD if it exists.
cmucl support localization where messages can be presented in the native language. This is done in the style of gettext which marks strings that are to be translated and provides the lookup to convert the string to the specified language.
All messages from cmucl can be translated but as of this writing, the only complete translation is a Pig Latin translation done by machine. There are a few messages translated to Korean.
In general, translatable strings are marked as such by using the
functions intl:gettext and intl:ngettext or by using the reader macros
_ or _N. When loading or compiling, such
strings are recorded for translation. At runtime, such strings are
looked in and the translation is returned. Doc strings do not need
to be noted in any way; the are automatically noted for
translation.
By default, recording of translatable strings is disabled. To enable recording of strings, call intl:translation-enable.
Enable recording of translatable strings.
Disablle recording of translatable strings.
Sets the locale to the locale specified by locale. If locale is not give or is nil, the locale is determined by look at the environment variables LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, or LANG. If none of these are set, the locale is unchanged.The default locale is “C”.
Set the default domain to the domain specified by domain. Typically, this only needs to be done at the top of each source file. This is used to gettext and ngettext to set the domain for the message string.
Look up the specified string, string, in the current message domain and return its translation.
Look up the specified string, string, in the message domain, domain. The translation is returned.When compiled, this also function also records the string so that an appropriate message template file can be created. (See intl::dump-pot-files.)
Look up the singular or plural form of a message in the default domain. The singular form is singular; the plural is plural. The number of items is specified by n in case the correct translation depends on the actual number of items.
Look up the singular or plural form of a message in the specified domain, domain. The singular form is singular; the plural is plural. The number of items is specified by n in case the correct translation depends on the actual number of items.When compiled, this also function also records the singular and plural forms so that an appropriate message template file can be created. (See intl::dump-pot-files.)
Dumps the translatable strings recorded by dgettext and dngettext. The message template file (pot file) is written to a file in the directory specified by output-directory, and the name of the file is the domain of the string.If copyright is specified, this is placed in the output file as the copyright message.
This is a list of directory pathnames where the translations can be found.
Installs reader macros and comment reader into the specified readtable as explained below. The readtable defaults to *readtable*.
Two reader macros are also provided: _” and _N”. The first is equivalent to wrapping dgettext around the string. The second returns the string, but also records the string. This is needed when we want to record a docstring for translation or any other string in a place where a macro or function call would be incorrect.
Also, the standard comment reader is extended to allow
translator comments to be saved and written to the messages
template file so that the translator may not need to look at the
original source to understand the string. Any comment line that
begins with exactly "TRANSLATORS: " is saved. This
means each translator comment must be preceded by this string to be
saved; the translator comment ends at the end of each line.
Here is a simple example of how to localize your code. Let the file intl-ex.lisp contain:
(intl:textdomain "example")
(defun foo (x y)
"Cool function foo of x and y"
(let ((result (bar x y)))
;; TRANSLATORS: One line comment about bar.
(format t _"bar of ~A and ~A = ~A~%" x y result)
#| TRANSLATORS: Multiline comment about
how many Xs there are
|#
(format t (intl:ngettext "There is one X"
"There are many Xs"
x))
result))
The call to textdomain sets the default domain for all translatable strings following the call.
Here is a sample session for creating a template file:
* (intl:install) T * (intl:translation-enable) T * (compile-file "intl-ex") #P"/Volumes/share/cmucl/cvs/intl-ex.sse2f" NIL NIL * (intl::dump-pot-files :output-directory "./") Dumping 3 messages for domain "example" NIL *
When this file is compiled, all of the translatable strings are recorded. This includes the docstring for foo, the string for the first format, and the string marked by the call to intl:ngettext.
A file named “example.pot” in the directory “./” is created. The contents of this file are:
#@ example
# SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
# FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR
#
#, fuzzy
msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION"
"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: "
"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI +ZONE"
"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>"
"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>"
"MIME-Version: 1.0"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit"
#. One line comment about bar.
#: intl-ex.lisp
msgid "bar of ~A and ~A = ~A~%"
msgstr ""
#. Multiline comment about
how many Xs there are
#: intl-ex.lisp
msgid "Cool function foo of x and y"
msgstr ""
#: intl-ex.lisp
msgid "There is one X"
msgid_plural "There are many Xs"
msgstr[0] ""
To finish the translation, a corresponding “example.po” file needs to be created with the appropriate translations for the given strings. This file must be placed in some directory that is included in intl:*locale-directories*.
Suppose the translation is done for Korean. Then the user can set the environment variables appropriately or call (intl:setlocale "ko"). Note that the external format for the standard streams needs to be set up appropriately too. It is up to the user to set this correctly. Once this is all done, the output from the function foo will now be in Korean instead of English as in the original source file.
For further information, we refer the reader to documentation on gettext.
cmucl supports static arrays which are arrays that are not moved by the garbage collector. To create such an array, use the :allocation option to make-array with a value of :malloc. These arrays appear as normal Lisp arrays, but are actually allocated from the C heap (hence the :malloc). Thus, the number and size of such arrays are limited by the available C heap.
Also, only certain types of arrays can be allocated. The static array cannot be adjustable and cannot be displaced to. The array must also be a simple-array of one dimension. The element type is also constrained to be one of the types in Table 2.3.
(unsigned-byte 8) (unsigned-byte 16) (unsigned-byte 32) (signed-byte 8) (signed-byte 16) (signed-byte 32) single-float double-float (complex single-float) (complex double-float)
Table 2.3: Allowed element types for static arrays
The arrays are properly handled by GC. GC will not move the arrays, but they will be properly removed up if they become garbage.