Archive:PackagingDrafts/Lisp

Lisp Packaging Guidelines

This document seeks to document the conventions and customs surrounding the proper packaging of Lisp implementations and libraries in Fedora.

common-lisp-controller

Fedora Lisp implementations and libraries should be packages as per the common-lisp-controller guidelines found below. These guidelines have been adopted from Debian's common-lisp-controller package and provide critical infrastructure for maintaining lisp libraries given a multitude of lisp implementations with incompatible binary forms (.fasl files, etc).

Naming

Lisp implementations should be named as per usual.

Lisp libraries should have their package names prefixed with "cl-", except in the case where the library name already starts with "cl-".

Rationale: There is some overlap between Lisp library names and existing Fedora packages. Creating a special name space for Lisp libraries should simplify life for everybody.

Packaging libraries

Library packages should install .lisp files as per the common-lisp-controller guidelines described below.

-devel sub-package

Pure lisp libraries do not require -devel sub-packages, as they install source code by default.

Further reading

See http://www.cliki.net/common-lisp-controller

Here's the common-lisp-controller design document from Debian...

; Copyright (C) 2000,2004  Peter Van Eynde and Kevin M. Rosenberg
; Licensed under the LLGPL, see debian/copyright file

This is the general design of the new 'light weight' common-lisp-controller v4.

Common Lisp Libraries:

Libraries should:
- use adsf
- install their source packages in /usr/share/common-lisp/source/<library>
- install a symlink to their asdf package from /usr/share/common-lisp/systems/<library>.asd to
/usr/share/common-lisp/source/<library>/<library>.asd
- after install call "/usr/sbin/register-common-lisp-source <library>"
- before removal of the package call "/usr/sbin/unregister-common-lisp-source <library>"
Libraries can be automaticly created with the "asdf-install-2-deb" package.

Common Lisp Implementations::

Implementations should:
- install a script /usr/lib/common-lisp/bin/<impl>.sh that has the following
commands:
/usr/lib/common-lisp/bin/<impl>.sh install-clc
This should load /usr/share/common-lisp/source/common-lisp-controller/common-lisp-controller.lisp
then call
(common-lisp-controller:init-common-lisp-controller-v4 <implementation)
and then save the resulting image as default for the system.
- after install call "/usr/sbin/register-common-lisp-implementation <implementation>"
- before removal call "/usr/sbin/unregister-common-lisp-implementation <implementation>"
- should load /etc/lisp-config.lisp on startup.

There are 2 scenarious:

- a user wants to use a system-wide library.
(asdf:oos 'asdf:compile-op :<library>)
will load the system at
/usr/share/common-lisp/systems/<library>.asd
that will use the source at
/usr/share/common-lisp/source/<library>
fasls will be placed in
/var/cache/common-lisp-controller/<userid>/<implementation>/<library>/
- a user wants to use another library. He or she used adsf-install
and the sources got placed in ~/.sbcl or ~/sdf-install-dir/. We do not interfere
with this use as we expect the user to be able to correct all errors :-).

User interface:

To load a library "cil" do:
(clc:clc-require :cil)

To recompile all libraries, dropping into the
debugger on error, do:
(clc:clc-build-all-packages)
to do so while ignoring build errors,
do:
(clc:clc-build-all-packages t)

To add user packages, use clc-register-user-package. This will
place a link to the user's asdf file in ~/.clc/systems.

Technical Implementation:

- register-common-lisp-source:
does nothing

- unregister-common-lisp-source:
does: (after checking stuff):
rm -rf /var/cache/common-lisp-controller/*/*/<library>

- register-common-lisp-implementation
does nothing

- unregister-common-lisp-implementation
does: (after checking stuff):
rm -rf /var/cache/common-lisp-controller/*/<implementation>

- clc-init.lisp:

loads adsf
builds pathname translations for /usr/share/common-lisp/source/
adds /usr/share/common-lisp/systems/ and <code>/.clc/systems
to the asdf registry