How to make Quicklisp available to a script that runs from a Shebang?

Question

I've been playing around with Quicklisp lately, and have this minor problem working with scripts with Shebangs.

Setup

I did the following:

1. Downloaded quicklisp with curl https://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp -o /tmp/quicklisp.lisp
2. Installed it with (quicklisp-quickstart:install) while having /tmp/quicklisp loaded in the environment.
3. Added Quicklisp to init file using (ql:add-to-init-file)

Problem

For a script that needs Quicklisp (specifically ASDF), I can run it with sbcl --load ~/quicklisp/setup.lisp --script start.lisp just fine. However, when I run it as a standalone script with the Shebang /usr/bin/env sbcl --script , it fails with an error saying that it isn't able to find things like UIOP , etc. unless I place the below two lines in the script itself:

(load "~/quicklisp/setup.lisp")
(ql:quickload "asdf")

You can find my stupid experiment here , and the script in question here .

PS: Any pointers would be really helpful.

PPS: I'm sure it's a stupid mistake on my end, forgive me.

Answer 1

In that case you need:

(require :asdf)

TBH, I don't know exactly why. --script equals to --no-sysinit --no-userinit --disable-debugger --end-toplevel-options , so it's a lot we ignore. (thus loading quicklisp's setup.lisp seems required too, because it won't be loaded by your .sbclrc, which is where Quicklisp adds this little snippet)

It's a setting I have needed in other environments, such as a CI.

Answer 2

I would use roswell - which makes standalone scripts available which use Common Lisp code.

I described setting up roswell here . It is super easy. I describe there system-wide installation of roswell or also how to locally install roswell in ubuntu, mac and windows.

Or you could also directly lookup on roswell 's site .

Using roswell would have the advantage that you can use any roswell-installable Common Lisp implementations, which are:

Candidates impls for installation are:
abcl-bin
allegro
ccl-bin
clasp-bin
clasp
clisp
cmu-bin
ecl
mkcl
sbcl-bin
sbcl
sbcl-source

not only sbcl alone.

And roswell allows scripts which are call-able directly from the shell while written in Common Lisp.

From inside roswell $ ros ... commands , quicklisp is available. So $ ros install xxx uses usually quicklisp to install xxx .

Using roswell, you can make any Common Lisp program callable from the bash by a single command - including your script - written in common lisp.

Look at eg here: https://roswell.github.io/Roswell-as-a-Scripting-Environment.html