This chapter explains how the Lisp Machine system interacts with files and the file system. It explains how to keep your programs in files and how to get them into the Lisp environment, how they relate to packages, how they are divided into sections, and how they are seen by EINE (the editor). Eventually, Lisp Machines will be able to support their own file sytems, or use a special purpose "File Computer" over the Chaosnet. At the moment, the prototype Lisp Machine uses the A.I. PDP-10 file system. To allow it to access the PDP-10 (which is not yet attached to the Chaosnet), a special program must be run on the PDP-10, which is invoked by typing :lmio;file to DDT. A pathname or filename is a string of characters which identifies a file in the file system. On the existing file system, a pathname looks like "device : directory ; fn1 fn2 " It is assumed that the reader of this document is familiar with the meanings of these pathnames, and the use of ">" as the fn2 in a pathname. Unlike Maclisp, Lisp Machine functions usually take filenames as a character string, rather then as a list. Most functions understand pathnames in which some components are not specified. For example, in the string "lispm;qmod" , the device and fn2 are not specified.
:confirm | Ask for confirmation before doing it (this is the default); |
:noconfirm | Don't ask for confirmation |
:compile | Compile files before loading; |
:nocompile | Do not compile (this is the default); |
:load | Load files (the default); |
:noload | Don't load (but compile, if that was specified); |
:selective | Ask about each file; |
:complete | Don't ask about each file (the default); |
:reload | Compile or load even files which appear not to need it; |
:noreload | Only process files which have newer versions on disk (the default); |
:recursive | Also process packages this one refers to; |
:defs | Process only DEFS files. |