On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Steve Morin <steve.mo...@gmail.com> wrote: > How to interact with a running lisp instance? I have been trying to figure > this out. I know this is being done with slime. Does any one have any good > pointer on this. I am thinking of writing a web application and would like > to be able to update it on the fly for updates and bug fixes.
The best generic answer is probably the following: if you have started something at the REPL, you can interrupt the process (Ctrl-C or something like that) and bet a "break" prompt, from which you can do everything you can do from the regular prompt: load/compile files, define functions, fix bugs &c &c &c. Then you should be able to continue the process you just interrupted. A less generic answer would be to start an extra thread which would be listening on a port and then you can connect to that port to get a lisp prompt without interrupting all the other processes currently running. Then you can do everything (load/compile files, define functions, fix bugs &c &c &c) and the lisp should be able to figure out which processes have to be stopped for which actions (e.g., a process using CLOS might have to be stopped while low-level MOP stuff is redefined). You (and the lisp implementors) have to be careful, of course, about the safe points when things can be interrupted and watch out for the little things like if you interrupt lisp inside a recursive function F and redefine F, or if you redefine F by connecting to a separate thread, then you don't know whether the recursive calls to F will be using the new or the old definition of F unless you disassemble the old definition of F and find out whether the recursive call is compiled as a jump (old definition will be used) or as a (FUNCALL #'F) (also old definition) or as a (FUNCALL 'F) (new definition will be used). -- Sam Steingold <http://sds.podval.org> _______________________________________________ pro mailing list pro@common-lisp.net http://common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pro
