[cl-ppcre-devel] using cl-ppcre functions without package prefixes

[Edi Weitz]

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 17:20:41 -0500, terrence.x.brannon at jpmchase.com wrote:

> Hello, I know this is more of just a pure Lisp question, but i
> cannot figure out how to get my Lisp program to use cl-ppcre without
> having to prefix the function calls with 'cl-ppcre'

Your technical question was answered already, but I suspect (I may be
wrong, of course) that you make the same mistake many Lisp newbies
make - you're confusing packages and systems.  A "package" is a
first-class Lisp object defined in the ANSI standard.  You can read
about it here for example:

  http://gigamonkeys.com/book/programming-in-the-large-packages-and-symbols.html

(Read the whole book if you haven't done so already.)

A "system" (that's a common usage of the name although there's no
fixed definition for it) is something that's defined by a defsystem
facility like ASDF - it's more or less a collection of source files
plus instructions on how they are to be compiled.

Very often there's a system and a package of the same name, like it's
the case for CL-PPCRE.  That doesn't have to be the case, though.  The
names could be different, one system could define more than one
package or no package at all, you can define a package without
defining a system, etc.

HTH,
Edi.