Armed Bear Common Lisp (ABCL) ============================= Armed Bear Common Lisp is a conforming implementation of ANSI X3J13 Common Lisp that runs in a Java virtual machine. It compiles Lisp code directly to Java byte code for execution. LICENSE ------- Armed Bear Common Lisp is distributed under the GNU General Public License with a classpath exception (see "Classpath Exception" below). A copy of GNU General Public License (GPLv2) is included in this distribution, in . We have modified our GPLv2 license section 13 to read: 13. Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole combination. The following paragraph details the "classpath exception" which ABCL allows as an exception to the statement about linking libraries. As a special exception, the copyright holders of this software give you permission to link this software with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this software. If you modify this software, you may extend this exception to your version of the software, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version. CONTAINERIZATION ---------------- We recommend using podman over docker for political reasons, but the surface syntax is identical so if you must, just substitute `docker` for `podman` in the following examples. With [podman][] installed, one may execute: podman build -t YOURID/abcl . podman run -it YOURID/abcl to get something like illin:~/work/abcl$ podman run -it YOURID/abcl VM settings: Max. Heap Size (Estimated): 3.89G Using VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Armed Bear Common Lisp 1.9.2 Java 17.0.2 Oracle Corporation OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Low-level initialization completed in 0.432 seconds. Startup completed in 2.246 seconds. Type ":help" for a list of available commands. CL-USER(1): To install Quicklisp for ABCL in the container run: podman run -t YOURID/abcl abcl \ --batch --load /home/abcl/work/abcl/ci/install-quicklisp.lisp See for the build instructions. [podman]: [Docker Engine]: RUNNING FROM BINARY RELEASE --------------------------- After you have downloaded a binary release from either [the distributed Maven POM graph][maven-abcl] or from [abcl.org][abcl.org-release] archive unpack it into its own directory. To run ABCL directly from this directory, make sure the Java executable (`java`) is in your shell's path. Java 8, 11, 17 are strongly supported by ABCL, but others may work with a little elbow grease. [maven-abcl]: [maven-abcl-contrib]: [abcl.org-release]: To start ABCL, simply issue the following command: cmd$ java -jar abcl.jar which should result in output like the following Armed Bear Common Lisp 1.9.2 Java 17.0.7 OpenJDK Porters Group OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Low-level initialization completed in 0.107 seconds. Startup completed in 0.493 seconds. CL-USER(1): Yer now at the interactive ABCL "Read Eval Print Loop" (REPL): hacks 'n glory await. See the section headed "SLIME" for instructions to connect to this repl from Emacs. BUILDING FROM SOURCE RELEASE ---------------------------- ABCL may be built from its source code by executing the build instructions expressed by the venerable Apache Ant tool. Alternately, one may use the Apache Maven tool as a facade to Ant. To build, one must have a Java 8, 11, or 17 openjdk installed locally. Just the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) isn't enough, as you need the Java compiler ('javac') to compile the Java source of the ABCL implementation. Download a binary distribution [Ant version 1.7.1 or greater][ant]. Unpack the files somewhere convenient, ensuring that the 'ant' (or 'ant.bat' under Windows) executable is in your path and executable. [ant]: Then simply executing cmd$ ant To use [Maven][], download it, ensure the `mvn` executable is in your PATH and then cmd$ mvn -Dmaven.test.skip=true install [Maven]: from the directory containing the instructions will create an executable wrapper ('abcl' under UNIX, 'abcl.bat' under Windows). Use this wrapper to start ABCL. The build may be customized by copying to , which will cause Ant to attempt to build incrementally as well as optimizing the runtime for a contemporary 64bit desktop/server machine running Java 8, 11, and/or 17. The file contains incomplete documentation on how it may be edited for subsequent customization. As an alternative to copying the prototype, if one has a version of bash locally, one may issue via Ant ant abcl.properties.autoconfigure.openjdk.17 or from the shell as bash ci/create-abcl-properties.bash openjdk17 Currently supported platforms are 'openjdk8', 'openjdk11', 'openjdk13', 'openjdk14', 'openjdk15', 'openjd16', 'openjdk17', 'openjdk18', and 'openjdk19'. USING APACHE NETBEANS --------------------- Alternatively, one may install the [Netbeans visual integrated development environment][netbeans], which contains both the Java Development Kit as well as the Ant build tool. The source distribution contains Netbeans-specific project artifacts under for loading ABCL as a Netbeans project. With Netbeans, one should be able to open the ABCL directory as a project whereupon the usual build, run, and debug targets as invoked in the GUI are available. To launch the debugging target it is currently necessary to have the `abcl.build.incremental` Ant property be set to `true`. This can most easily be affected by running the autoconfigure mechanism for the underlying JVM platform as documented in the previous section entitlted "BUILDING FROM SOURCE RELEASE". To connect to the running Netbeans process, one may use the `slime` Netbeans configuration connecting to when prompted from an invocation M-x slime-connect with Emacs. For this to work, ASDF must be configured to find a suitably linked SLIME `swank.asd`; the Lisp stanzas in the subsequent section entitled "SLIME" affect this in the local installation. [netbeans]: SLIME ----- For usage of ABCL with the [Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs][slime], one may easily start a Swank listener via: (require :asdf) (require :abcl-contrib) (asdf:load-system :quicklisp-abcl) (or (asdf:make :swank) (ql:quickload :swank)) (swank:create-server :dont-close t) [slime]: BUGS ---- Armed Bear Common Lisp strives to be a conforming ANSI X3J13 Common Lisp implementation. Any other behavior should be reported as a bug. ABCL has a [User Manual][manual] stating its conformance to the ANSI standard, providing a compliant and practical Common Lisp implementation. [manual]: TESTS ----- | Version | Failures | Total | |---------+----------+-------| | 1.9.2 | 63 | 21902 | | 1.9.1 | 60 | 21870 | | 1.9.0 | 61 | 21870 | | 1.8.0 | 49 | 21848 | | 1.5.0 | 48 | 21708 | ABCL 1.9.2 currently fails ~63 out of 21902 the current ANSI test suite derived from the tests originally written for GCL. [ansi-test]: Maxima's test suite runs without failures. ABCL comes with a test suite. Consult the output of `ant help.test` for more information. SUPPORT ------- ABCL has many deficiencies, both known and unknown. Descriptions, tests, and even patches to address them will be gladly accepted. Please report problems to the [development mailing list][mailing-list] or via opening an issue on either the [ABCL trac instance][trac] or [github][]. [mailing-list]: [github]: [trac]: AUTHORS ------- On behalf of all ABCL development team and contributors, Mark Evenson Erik Hülsmann Rudolf Schlatte Alessio Stalla Ville Voutilainen alan dmiles Dmitry Nadezhin olof ferada pipping slyrus vibhu Jonathan Cunningham Uthar alejandrozf phoe jackdaniel Robert Munyer Eric Timmons (daewok) contrapunctus Scott Burson Samuel Hunter Phil Eaton jpellegrini András Simon Peter Graves Have fun! June 2023