[slime-devel] Re: Trying to connect slime to clisp

[Luke Gorrie]

Howdy!

Deb Midya <debmidya at yahoo.com> writes:

> 3. Try
>
> As per the quick setup instructions of slime in README file, I have
> created a text file with the following four lines.
>
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/Deb/slime/slime-2.0/")  ; your SLIME directory
> (setq inferior-lisp-program "/Deb/clisp/clisp-2.38") ; your Lisp system
> (require 'slime)
> (slime-setup)
>
>  [Note: I could not follow the line: Add this to your ~/.emacs file and
> fill in the appropriate filenames:]

The name ~/.emacs is a Unixism: it means a text file called ".emacs"
in your home directory. On Unix the home directory is well-defined but
on Windows there is not normally such a concept so Emacs will have to
improvise somewhere to call home (aka ~).

The .emacs file contains Emacs Lisp code for Emacs (not CLISP) to run
during startup. This is how you customize Emacs.

I would expect that Emacs starts in the home directory. If that's the
case then you could create the .emacs file with these steps:

1. Start Emacs
2. C-x C-f .emacs RET   (to open .emacs file)
3. Paste in those four lines.
4. C-x C-s   (to save)
5. Restart Emacs (now it should load .emacs)

Alternatively you can probably say `C-x C-f ~/.emacs RET' to load the
.emacs file of the home directory.

> Where do I get ~/.emacs file? And how can I use the above four lines of
> commands to connect slime to clisp? I have cut the first line and tried to
> put it at the command line of clisp, but it does not accept. I have typed
> manually the first aline at the command line of clisp. It does not work
> (error: UNDEFINED FUNCTION ADD-TO-LIST). Where as, it accepts the second
> line.

NB: This is because add-to-list is an Emacs Lisp function that doesn't
exist in Common Lisp.

Cheers,
-Luke