A.5 Not Dumping Executables

Although command-line processing really makes sense for standalone executables, you may want to preserve interactivity with your application during the development phase, for instance for testing or debugging purposes.

It is possible to use Clon interactively, that is, within a regular Lisp REPL, without dumping anything. First of all, we have already seen that it is possible to use a virtual command-line (see Using Different Command-Lines). You can also use Clon interactively with the actual Lisp invocation’s command-line, although a word of advice is in order here.

As you might expect, the problem in that situation lies in the way the different Lisp implementations treat their own command-line. Guess what, it’s a mess. When you dump an executable the Clon way, the cmdline function will always contain user options only (the dump macro instructs the compilers to not process the command-line at all). When you use Clon interactively and mix compiler-specific options with application ones when invoking your Lisp environment, the situation is as follows:

SBCL

SBCL processes its own options and leaves the others unprocessed on the command-line. This means that as long as there is no overlap between SBCL’s options and yours, you can just put them all together on the command-line. In case of overlap however, you need to separate SBCL’s options from yours with a call to --end-toplevel-options (that’s an SBCL specific option separator).

CMUCL

CMUCL processes its own options, issues a warning about the options it doesn’t know about, but in any case, it eats the whole command-line. Consequently, if you want to provide options to your application, you need to put them after a -- separator. Note that you can still use a second such separator to provide Clon with both some options and a remainder (see Option Separator in The Clon End-User Manual).

CCL

ECL

CLISP

CCL, ECL and CLISP all process their own options but will abort on unknown ones. Consequently, if you want to provide options to your application, you need to put them after a -- separator. Note that you can still use a second such separator to provide Clon with both some options and a remainder (see Option Separator in The Clon End-User Manual).

ABCL

ABCL processes its own options and leaves the others unprocessed on the command-line. This means that as long as there is no overlap between ABCL’s options and yours, you can just put them all together on the command-line. In case of overlap however, you need to separate ABCL’s options from yours with a -- separator. Note that you can still use a second such separator to provide Clon with both some options and a remainder (see Option Separator in The Clon End-User Manual).

Allegro

Allegro processes its own options, issues only a warning about options it doesn’t know of, and leaves anything after a -- alone. Consequently, if you want to provide options to your application, you need to put them after a -- separator. Note that you can still use a second such separator to provide Clon with both some options and a remainder (see Option Separator in The Clon End-User Manual).

LispWorks

LispWorks processes its own options and ignores the other ones, but always leaves everything on the command-line. It does not currently support -- as an option separator either. Consequently, if you want to provide options to your application, you need to put them after a -- separator, although you will get into trouble if any option there is recognized by LispWorks itself. Note that you can still use a second such separator to provide Clon with both some options and a remainder (see Option Separator in The Clon End-User Manual).