common-lisp-controller

A very nice system for installing Common Lisp libraries and source on Debian and Gentoo linux systems. More information may be found at design document in cvs.

The package has a webpage on alioth and two mailing lists clc-users and clc-devel -at- lists.alioth.debian.org should be created in the next few hours.

Currently, Common Lisp Controller is supported by the following Common Lisp implementations in Debian:

CMUCL
SBCL
CLisp
OpenMCL
AllegroCL
Lispworks

The very first thing you have to do is:

# apt-get install common-lisp-controller

Installation of other Common Lisp libraries should then be a simple matter of:

# apt-get install

e.g apt-get install cl-split-sequence You're good to go now.

How it works (note: we're describing version 4 here):

it's expected to be used with a package system that can run setup scripts after installing things.
lisp packages are distributed as source code, placed in the /usr/share/common-lisp/source/package/.
asdf is required. Each package needs a system definition that expects it to be found in /usr/share/common-lisp/systems/.
it does not anymore use the logical pathname system. Instead it overrides the asdf:output-files method to divert the fasls to a user, implementation and library specific location. At the moment /var/cache/common-lisp-controller/user-name/implementation/library/.
To use a library the user just has to use (clc:clc-require :foo)
To recompile all libraries the user can use (clc:clc-build-all-packages) or (clc:clc-build-all-packages t) to ignore any errors during rebuilding.
On installation of an implementation it should run /usr/sbin/register-common-lisp-implementation bar where bar is the name of the implementation. On removal it should call the /usr/sbin/unregister-common-lisp-implementation bar command.
An implementation should provide a /usr/lib/common-lisp/bin/bar.sh script that implements the install-clc command.
On installation libraries should call /usr/sbin/register-common-lisp-source foo on removal /usr/sbin/unregister-common-lisp-source foo.
Also there is now a debconf interface for site-name stuff that implementations should use if possible. The results are stored in /etc/lisp-config.lisp.

We simply add a system location to asdf's ASDF:*CENTRAL-REGISTRY*, so the native locations still work. To install local packages, either use asdf-install or modify at ASDF:*CENTRAL-REGISTRY* to also point to your files.

Presently it's only being used with Debian packages, as far as I (Daniel Barlow) know, but e.g. RPMs would be just as possible.

(Actually it's not. It's also available for RedHat from the PlanetCCRMA project with apt in very similiar manner.)

For version 2 this was reported to work, for version 3 I suspect not.

For version 4 I Peter Van Eynde removed a lot of fat. The new system is much leaner and should be almost trivially portable. The one thing missing is how to convert asdf-install packages to proper debian packages, but I fear some additions to the asdf-install format will be needed. The need for a copyright file for example.

I (Liam Healy) am trying to understand the transition to v4. Sorry if this is not the right forum to ask these questions.

Over the summer I ported all my CL software to use clc and the standard cl-* packages in Debian. Among other things, I wished to smoothly go from one CL implementation to another, and to have my own CL software use clc and be able to have others using the same computer do the same thing, without being root. If found clc-register-user-package to work well for this purpose. Though there were some glitches, things work well.

Recently I did an apt-get upgrade and poof - there's no more clc-register-user-package and apparently no replacement. I do not wish to build a debian library, I merely want to be able to load my CL ASDF systems without being root and without conflicting with other users' systems of the same name. Is this no longer supported? /usr/share/doc/README.design.gz is cryptic and opaque.

Is there any sort of development list or other forum for c-l-c development? Is there even a web site beyond this CLiki entry? -- James A. Crippen

I, (Peter Van Eynde) made a mistakes obviously in removing those commands. If there is a demand from the users to reintroduce clc-register-user-package I will try what I can do, must mostly it is a asdf, or better a asdf-install problem. The lack of a standard location for user packages on non-sbcl systems is... irritating.

(Liam Healy) Thank you. Here is where my confusion begins: I (a) have all my systems in ASDF now, but its capability is not what I'm talking about; (b) I follow the link to asdf-install and I read in the first line: "asdf-install is a development application for downloading and installing lisp packages." As you can see this is not the problem I wish to solve; I am not downloading nor installing lisp packages. What clc v3 did that asdf does not do is: (1) compile my own ASDF systems as an ordinary user from user files, without making system-wide definitions, (2) allow me to use different CL compilers, hiding away the binaries but keeping them straight, (3) load systems with a simple, memorable command (require :foobar), (4) let my systems load other systems of mine or with Debian-packaged systems with the same command.

If asdf-install lets me do those things without building a formal package, I can't discern this from the documentation, so I'd like to know how to do it. As it is now, I have a hold on all my clc v3 and related packages, but this is a problem as I'm getting further and further behind in testing. So I'd really like to hear about any solution

I said the problem is one of asdf-install because it doesn't define where user systems are placed on non-sbcl platforms. I now uploaded version 4.11 of clc that re-introduces clc-register-user-package. It should solve problem 1 and 4. Problem 3 is solved if you (use-package :clc), just type (clc-require :foo. Overriding require is non-supported actually. Problem 2 I don't understand: do you want your packages to be compiled also to the /var/cache/common-lisp directories?

No, to ~/.clc/bin or somewhere else in my home directory, as they are with clc v3. This contains all the CL binaries separated by implementation (~/.clc/bin/sbcl-mt, ~/.clc/bin/alisp8, etc.). There is also ~/.clc/systems which contains links for my .asd files which would seem pretty important as well.

The rest sounds good. I appreciate the development on clc, I think it solves a lot of CL's portability problems.

Pages in this topic: CL-XML Zebu

Also linked from: acl-installer asdf Binary-types cclan-repository clc-build-daemon CLOCC-PORT CLUE Common Lisp Controller Debian development document Gentoo Less Recent Changes lw-installer SBCL Windows Common Lisp Controller XPTEST

CLiki pages can be edited by anyone at any time. Imagine a fearsomely comprehensive disclaimer of liability. Now fear, comprehensively