2 Clonification

Given this wonderful standalone Common Lisp application, how do I know if it uses Clon for handing the command-line? Perhaps the simplest way to know is to type

program --clon-help

and see what happens. If you get an error, then you are out of luck. Otherwise, you will get a list of Clon-specific options. Every clonified application has these options built-in, and they are all called --clon-something. We will describe most of them when appropriate in this manual, but here’s already the description for a couple of them (in addition to --clon-help that we’ve just mentioned).

--clon--banner

When given this option, the application outputs a whole bunch of information, including the version of Clon it is using, and Clon-specific copyright information.

--clon-version

This option makes the application output the version of Clon it is using. By default (or by using it like this: --clon-version=long), this information is provided in long form (release number, status and name; just try it). If you ask for --clon-version=short, you’ll get a more compact version information, and if you try --clon-version=number, you will end up with a purely numerical version number. For more information on Clon version numbering, see Version Numbering in The Clon User Manual.

--clon-lisp-information

Finally, this option displays some information about the underlying Lisp implementation that was used to create this executable.