Question

I’ve just started learning Lisp and I can’t figure out how to compile and link lisp code to an executable.

I’m using clisp and clisp -c produces two files:

• .fas
• .lib

What do I do next to get an executable?

Answer 1

I was actually trying to do this today, and I found typing this into the CLisp REPL worked:

(EXT:SAVEINITMEM 'executable.exe'                  :QUIET t                  :INIT-FUNCTION 'main                  :EXECUTABLE t                  :NORC t) 

where main is the name of the function you want to call when the program launches, :QUIET t suppresses the startup banner, and :EXECUTABLE t makes a native executable.

It can also be useful to call

(EXT:EXIT) 

at the end of your main function in order to stop the user from getting an interactive lisp prompt when the program is done.

EDIT: Reading the documentation, you may also want to add :NORC t (read link). This suppresses loading the RC file (for example, ~/.clisprc.lisp).