sbcli

A better REPL for SBCL. It handles errors greacefully, is not too verbose, and has readline capabilities, including multiline input and reset.

Installation

For most cases, calling ./install.sh should suffice. It will install sbcli into $PREFIX/bin, with the environment variable PREFIX defaulting to /usr/local. If you are using Mac and having issues with cl-readline see the installation notes for cl-readline.

Dependencies

sbcli depends on Quicklisp and cl-readline. If you have Quicklisp installed, cl-readline will be installed on sbclis first launch. sbcli assumes that Quicklisp is installed under ~/quicklisp. This value can be overridden by setting $QUICKLISP_HOME.

Usage

You should be able to launch sbcli by just typing sbcli. Once you’re in the REPL, you can edit normally with readline capabilities. Hitting tab will autocomplete (note that if there is more than one possibility, you’ll have to hit tab twice).

Typing ,help will list all available special commands.

Typing ,def will give you an overview over what you’ve defined.

Typing ,h symbol will enter inspection mode for a symbol. Typing CTRL-D exits inspection mode.

Typing ,q, CTRL-D, or CTRL-C will exit the REPL.

Typing ,r resets the environment.

Typing ,d symbol dumps the disassembly of a symbol.

Typing ,t <expression> prints the type returned by an expression.

Typing ,s filename will save all of the expressions that were typed and evaluated to the file specified, in the format:

(+ 1 2) ; => 3
(* 6 10) ; => 60
; *last-result* contains the last result
(+ 2 *last-result*) ; => 62

Of course, depending on your result, this can result in very long lines, or break if your result contains newlines. Use at your own peril for now!

Customization

If you want you can add customizations to sbcli. On startup it will load ~/.config/sbcli/init.lisp if it exists, honoring the value of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME. Placing the init file at ~/.sbclirc is considered deprecated. You can execute arbitrary code there, two of the more interesting values to set are *prompt* and *ret*. Check out an example resource file here.

Exposed Variables

For reference, here is a complete list of the variables we expose and their default values:

;;; these are constants and cannot be changed

;; the name and version of the REPL
+repl-name+    ; => "Veit's REPL for SBCL"
+repl-version+ ; => "0.1.3"
+home-directory+ ; => "~/.config/sbcli/"
+init-file+    ; => "~/.config/sbcli/init.lisp"

;;; these are variables you can customize

;; the startup and shutdown messages
*welcome-msg* ; => "Veit's REPL for SBCL version 0.1.3"
*goodbye-msg* ; => "Bye for now."

;; the prompt and continuation prompt variables
*prompt*       ; => "sbcl> "
*prompt2*      ; => "....> "

;; the return value prompt
*ret*          ; => "=> "

;; where to store the history or nil to not store it
*hist-file*    ; => "~/.config/sbcli/history"

;; the list of all special commands
*special*

;;; these are variables you shouldn't customize

;; the last result and history variables
*last-result*  ; => nil
*hist*         ; => ()

Have fun!