Regarding Steps Towards ABCL STEP Functionality

[Alan Ruttenberg]

I've wanted this too for a while, but it hasn't reached the top, so I'm
very happy to hear you are interested in this. I believe I thought the
starting point should be in src/org/armedbear/Lisp.java which hosts what
looks like an evaluator. Look for

  public static final LispObject eval(final LispObject obj,
                                      final Environment env,
                                      final LispThread thread)

For instance at "else if (obj instanceof Cons)"  it is handling evaluation
of a cons, with the first section handling the case where the  first
element is a symbol and checking for whether it names a  function, macro,
or special form. Below that it handles the case where there's a lambda in
the function position. There's a hook for profiling that counts function
calls - presumably that would be one place to hook. You'll need to follow
it to see how special forms are processed, etc.

If, in slime you execute e.g.  (defun foo (a b &optional c) (and c (+ a b)))
and (inspect #'foo), you'll see how ABCL represents evaluated functions.

Alan

On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 8:35 AM loveleague <loveleague at protonmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> While reading through the release manual, I came across the realization --
> from section 1.1.2 -- that ABCL still needs an implementation of the STEP
> function.
>
> I would like to look into the details of the hurdles one might need to
> overcome to bring STEP functionality to ABCL. I imagine there may be some
> additional challenges from dealing with the JVM, but I'm not well versed as
> of yet on the topic of debuggers or JVM internals.
>
> If it would be possible to share some details on where one would get
> started in trying to approach this, that would be appreciated.
>
> - Luke
>
>
>
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