Customization
More features for the Read-Eval-Print-Loop (REPL) in a terminal
CLISP has an integration with GNU Readline.
For improvements for other implementations see: How to customize the SBCL REPL.
Initialization Files
Most Common Lisp implementations will try to load an init file on startup:
| Implementation | Init file | Site/System Init file |
|---|---|---|
| ABCL | $HOME/.abclrc |
|
| Allegro CL | $HOME/.clinit.cl |
|
| ECL | $HOME/.eclrc |
|
| Clasp | $HOME/.clasprc |
|
| CLISP | $HOME/.clisprc.lisp |
|
| Clozure CL | home:ccl-init.lisp or home:ccl-init.fasl or home:.ccl-init.lisp |
|
| CMUCL | $HOME/.cmucl-init.lisp |
|
| LispWorks | $HOME/.lispworks |
|
| MKCL | $HOME/.mkclrc |
|
| SBCL | $HOME/.sbclrc |
$SBCL_HOME/sbclrc or /etc/sbclrc |
| SCL | $HOME/.scl-init.lisp |
Sample Initialization files:
| Implementation | Sample Init file |
|---|---|
| LispWorks | Library/lib/7-0-0-0/config/a-dot-lispworks.lisp |
Optimization settings
Common Lisp has a way to influence the compilation strategies. It makes sense to define your preferred values.
Optimization values are between 0 (unimportant) and 3 (extremely important). 1 is the neutral value.
It’s useful to always use safe code (safety = 3) with all runtime checks enabled.
Note that the interpretation of values is implementation specific. Most Common Lisp implementations make some use of these values.
| Setting | Explanation | useful default value | useful delivery value |
|---|---|---|---|
compilation-speed |
speed of the compilation process | 2 | 0 |
debug |
ease of debugging | 2 | 1 or 0 |
safety |
run-time error checking | 3 | 2 |
space |
both code size and run-time space | 2 | 2 |
speed |
speed of the object code | 2 | 3 |
An optimize declaration for use with declaim, declare and proclaim:
(optimize (compilation-speed 2)
(debug 2)
(safety 3)
(space 2)
(speed 2))Note that you can also apply special optimization settings to portions of the code in a function using the macro LOCALLY.