under Emacs. The Emacs "ilisp" mode provides many convenient features,
like command line editing, tab completion, and various kinds of
coupling between Common Lisp source files and the interactive SBCL
-subprocess.
+subprocess, but can be somewhat fragile because it tries to be so
+clever and intimate in its interactions with the Lisp subprocess. In
+case of ilisp problems, running SBCL in the Emacs "shell" mode can a
+useful substitute.
.SH OVERVIEW
interpreted language. Ignore them.)
SBCL aims for but has not yet reached compliance with the ANSI
-standard for Common Lisp. More information on this is available in the
-BUGS section below.
+standard for Common Lisp. More information about this is available in
+the BUGS section below.
SBCL also includes various non-ANSI extensions.
(Why doesn't SBCL support more extensions? Why drop all those nice
extensions from CMU CL when the code already exists? This is a
-frequently asked question on the mailing list. In other cases, it's a
+frequently asked question on the mailing list. In some cases, it's a
design philosophy issue: arguably SBCL has done its job by supplying a
stable FFI, and the right design decision is to move functionality
derived from that, like socket support, into separate libraries,
.TP 3
.B --core <corefilename>
Run the specified Lisp core file instead of the default. (See the FILES
-section.) Note that if the Lisp core file is a user-created core file, it may
-run a nonstandard toplevel which does not recognize the standard toplevel
-options.
+section for the standard core, or the system documentation for
+SB-INT:SAVE-LISP-AND-DIE for information about how to create a
+custom core.) Note that if the Lisp core file is a user-created core
+file, it may run a nonstandard toplevel which does not recognize the
+standard toplevel options.
.TP 3
.B --noinform
Suppress the printing of any banner or other informational message at
-startup. (This makes it easier to write Lisp programs which work in
-Unix pipelines. See also the "--noprogrammer" and "--noprint" options.)
+startup. (This makes it easier to write Lisp programs which work
+cleanly in Unix pipelines. See also the "--noprint" and
+"--disable-debugger" options.)
.PP
In the future, runtime options may be added to control behavior such
are stripped out of the command line before the
Lisp toplevel logic gets a chance to see it.
-Supported toplevel options for the standard SBCL core are
+The toplevel options supported by the standard SBCL core are
.TP 3
.B --sysinit <filename>
Load filename instead of the default system-wide initialization file.
When ordinarily the toplevel "read-eval-print loop" would be executed,
execute a "read-eval loop" instead, i.e. don't print a prompt and
don't echo results. Combined with the --noinform runtime option, this
-makes it easier to write Lisp "scripts" which work in Unix pipelines.
+makes it easier to write Lisp "scripts" which work cleanly in Unix
+pipelines.
.TP 3
-.B --noprogrammer
+.B --disable-debugger
+This is equivalent to --eval '(sb-ext:disable-debugger)'.
By default, a Common Lisp system tries to ask the programmer for help
when it gets in trouble (by printing a debug prompt on *DEBUG-IO*).
However, this is not useful behavior for a system running with no
*DEBUGGER-HOOK* to output a backtrace, then exit the process with a
failure code. Because it is implemented by modifying special variables,
its effects persist in .core files created by SB-EXT:SAVE-LISP-AND-DIE.
+(If you want to undo its effects, see the SB-EXT:ENABLE-DEBUGGER
+command.)
.PP
Regardless of the order in which --sysinit, --userinit, and --eval
.SH SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-Unlike its distinguished ancestor CMU CL, SBCL currently runs only on
-X86 (Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD), Alpha (Linux), and SPARC (Linux).
+SBCL currently runs on
+X86 (Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD), Alpha (Linux, Tru64), PPC
+(Linux) and SPARC (Linux and Solaris 2.x).
For information on other ongoing and possible ports, see the
sbcl-devel mailing list, and/or the web site.
-SBCL requires on the order of 16Mb RAM to run on X86 systems.
+SBCL requires on the order of 16Mb RAM to run on X86 systems,
+though for all but the smallest programs would be happier with 32Mb
+or more.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.SH REPORTING BUGS
-To report a bug, please send mail to sbcl-help@lists.sourceforge.net
-or sbcl-devel@lists.sourceforge.net.
+To report a bug, please send mail to the mailing lists sbcl-help or
+sbcl-devel. You can find the complete mailing list addresses on the
+web pages, <http://sbcl.sourceforge.net/>. (You may also find fancy
+SourceForge bug-tracking machinery there, but don't be fooled. As of
+2002-07-25 anyway, we don't actively monitor that machinery, and it
+exists only because we haven't been able to figure out how to turn
+it off.)
As with any software bug report, it's most helpful if you can provide
enough information to reproduce the symptoms reliably, and if you say
clearly what the symptoms are. E.g. "There seems to be something wrong
with TAN of very small negative arguments. When I execute
-(TAN LEAST-NEGATIVE-SINGLE-FLOAT) interactively on sbcl-1.2.3 on my Linux
-4.5 X86 box, I get an UNBOUND-VARIABLE error."
+(TAN LEAST-NEGATIVE-SINGLE-FLOAT) interactively on sbcl-1.2.3 on my
+Linux 4.5 X86 box, I get an UNBOUND-VARIABLE error."
.SH SUPPORT
<http://sbcl.sourceforge.net/>. The mailing lists there are the
recommended place to look for support.
+.SH FILES
+
+.TP
+.I sbcl
+executable program containing some low-level runtime support and
+a loader, used to read sbcl.core
+.TP
+.I sbcl.core
+dumped memory image containing most of SBCL, to be loaded by
+the 'sbcl' executable
+.TP
+.I sbclrc
+optional system-wide startup script (in an etc-ish system
+configuration file directory)
+.TP
+.I .sbclrc
+optional per-user customizable startup script (in user's home directory)
+
.SH AUTHORS
Dozens of people have made substantial contributions to SBCL and its
projects / sbcl.git / blobdiff