OpenLisp is a

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

in the

Lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lispi ...

family developed by Christian Jullien from Eligis. It conforms to the international standard for

ISLISP ISLISP (also capitalized as ISLisp) is a programming language in the Lisp family standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) joint working group ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/W ...

published jointly by the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...

(ISO) and

International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and ...

(IEC), ISO/IEC 13816:1997(E), revised to ISO/IEC 13816:2007(E). Written in the programming languages C and Lisp, it runs on most common

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s. OpenLisp is designated an

implementation, but also contains many

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S20018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperlinked HTML version, has been derived fr ...

-compatible extensions (hashtable, readtable, package, defstruct, sequences, rational numbers) and other

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

(

network socket A network socket is a software structure within a network node of a computer network that serves as an endpoint for sending and receiving data across the network. The structure and properties of a socket are defined by an application programmin ...

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

, Portable Operating System Interface (

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming inte ...

), SQL,

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory serv ...

(LDAP)). OpenLisp includes an interpreter associated to a

read–eval–print loop A read–eval–print loop (REPL), also termed an interactive toplevel or language shell, is a simple interactive computer programming environment that takes single user inputs, executes them, and returns the result to the user; a program written ...

(REPL), a Lisp Assembly Program (LAP) and a backend

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

for the language C.

Goals

The main goal of this

version is to implement a fully compliant ISLISP system (when launched with --islisp flag, it is strictly restricted to ISO/IEC 13816:2007(E) specification). The secondary goal is to provide a complete embeddable Lisp system linkable to C/ C++ or

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

(via

Java Native Interface In software design, the Java Native Interface (JNI) is a foreign function interface programming framework that enables Java code running in a Java virtual machine (JVM) to call and be called by native applications (programs specific to a hardwa ...

(JNI)). A callback mechanism is used to communicate with the external program. Other goals are to be usable as

scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripti ...

glue language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scriptin ...

and to produce

standalone program A stand-alone program, also known as a freestanding program, is a computer program that does not load any external module, library function or program and that is designed to boot with the bootstrap procedure of the target processor – it runs o ...

executables.

License

Despite its name, OpenLisp is

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern ...

. Its interpreter is available free of charge for any noncommercial use.

User interface

OpenLisp mainly runs in console mode: cmd.exe on Microsoft Windows, and

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote ter ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

-based systems. ;; OpenLisp v11.x.y (Build: XXXX) by C. Jullien an 01 20xx - 10:49:13 ;; Copyright (c) Eligis - 1988-20xx. ;; System 'sysname' (64-bit, 8 CPU) on 'hostname', ASCII. ;; God thank you, OpenLisp is back again! ? (fib 20) ;; elapsed time = 0.003s, (0 gc). = 6765 ? _ Alternate solutions include running OpenLisp from

Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, ...

via setting up Emacs inferior-lisp-mode, or using an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools a ...

(IDE) which supports OpenLisp syntax. LispIDE by DaanSystems does so natively.

Technology

Memory manager

Internally, OpenLisp uses

virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very ...

to allocate and extend objects automatically. Small objects of the same type are allocated using a Bibop (BIg Bag Of Pages) memory organization. Large objects use a

proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate re ...

which point to the real object in Lisp heap. The conservative

garbage collection Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclable ...

is a ''mark and sweep'' with coalescing heap (sweep phase can be configured to use

threads Thread may refer to: Objects * Thread (yarn), a kind of thin yarn used for sewing ** Thread (unit of measurement), a cotton yarn measure * Screw thread, a helical ridge on a cylindrical fastener Arts and entertainment * ''Thread'' (film), 2016 ...

Data types

OpenLisp uses

tagged architecture In computer science, a tagged architecture is a particular type of computer architecture where every word of memory constitutes a tagged union, being divided into a number of bits of data, and a ''tag'' section that describes the type of the data: ...

(4 bits tag on

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calcula ...

, 5 bits tag on

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A comp ...

) for fast type checking (small integer, float, symbol, cons, string, vector). Small integers (28 bits on 32-bit, 59 bits on 64-bit) are unboxed, large (32/64-bit) integers are boxed. As required by ISLISP,

arbitrary-precision arithmetic In computer science, arbitrary-precision arithmetic, also called bignum arithmetic, multiple-precision arithmetic, or sometimes infinite-precision arithmetic, indicates that calculations are performed on numbers whose digits of precision are l ...

(bignums) are also implemented. Characters (hence strings) are either

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data buses of ...

(

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...

EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC; ) is an eight-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding s ...

) or 16/32-bit if

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

support is enabled.

Evaluator and compiler

The Lisp Kernel, native interpreter and basic libraries are hand coded in the language C, LAP

intermediate language An intermediate representation (IR) is the data structure or code used internally by a compiler or virtual machine to represent source code. An IR is designed to be conducive to further processing, such as optimization and translation. A "good" ...

produced by the

is then translated to C by the C backend code generator.

History

In 1988, the very first motive behind OpenLisp was to implement a Lisp subset to extend EmACT, an

clone. ISLISP became an obvious choice quickly. Further development ensued.

Ports

OpenLisp claims to be extremely portable, it runs on many

s including:

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

, most

and

based (

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking N ...

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

, Solaris,

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrit ...

, AIX,

Cygwin Cygwin ( ) is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed. The Cygwin i ...

QNX QNX ( or ) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. QNX was one of the first commercially successful microkernel operating systems. The product was originally developed in the early 19 ...

), DOS,

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 200 ...

OpenVMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Ope ...

z/OS z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM z/Architecture mainframes, introduced by IBM in October 2000. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn was preceded by a string of MVS versions.Starting with the earliest: ...

. The official website download section contains over 50 different versions.

Standard libraries

Connectors

OpenLisp can interact with modules written in C using

foreign function interface A foreign function interface (FFI) is a mechanism by which a program written in one programming language can call routines or make use of services written in another. Naming The term comes from the specification for Common Lisp, which explicit ...

(FFI), ISLISP streams are extended to support

(./net directory includes samples for

Hypertext Transfer Protocol The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, w ...

(http),

JavaScript Object Notation JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other se ...

(JSON),

Post Office Protocol In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 (POP3) is the version in common use, and along with IMAP the most comm ...

3 (POP3),

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typic ...

(SMTP),

Telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet cont ...

Rss RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

), a simplified Extensible Markup Language (

) reader can convert XML to Lisp. A basic SQL module can be used with

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

Odbc In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. A ...

SQLite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the mo ...

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

. A

comma-separated values A comma-separated values (CSV) file is a delimited text file that uses a comma to separate values. Each line of the file is a data record. Each record consists of one or more fields, separated by commas. The use of the comma as a field separat ...

(CSV) module can read and write CSV files.

Tools

Developer tools include

data logging A data logger (also datalogger or data recorder) is an electronic device that records data over time or about location either with a built-in instrument or sensor or via external instruments and sensors. Increasingly, but not entirely, they a ...

, pretty-printer, profiler, design by contract programming, and unit tests.

Algorithms

Some well known algorithms are available in ./contrib directory (Dantzig's

simplex algorithm In mathematical optimization, Dantzig's simplex algorithm (or simplex method) is a popular algorithm for linear programming. The name of the algorithm is derived from the concept of a simplex and was suggested by T. S. Motzkin. Simplices are no ...

Dijkstra's algorithm Dijkstra's algorithm ( ) is an algorithm for finding the shortest paths between nodes in a graph, which may represent, for example, road networks. It was conceived by computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra in 1956 and published three years ...

, Ford–Fulkerson algorithm). Modules are shipped using

BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD li ...

Origin of name

The prefix ''Open'' refers to open systems not to the

open-source model Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

. The name was chosen in 1993 to replace the MLisp internal code name which was already used by

Gosling Emacs Gosling Emacs (often shortened to "Gosmacs" or "gmacs") is a discontinued Emacs implementation written in 1981 by James Gosling in C. Gosling initially allowed Gosling Emacs to be redistributed with no formal restrictions, as required by the "Em ...

(as successor of

Mocklisp Gosling Emacs (often shortened to "Gosmacs" or "gmacs") is a discontinued Emacs implementation written in 1981 by James Gosling in C. Gosling initially allowed Gosling Emacs to be redistributed with no formal restrictions, as required by the "Em ...

). OpenLisp

is different than OpenLISP, a project begun in 1997 to implement

Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) () is a "map-and-encapsulate" protocol which is developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force LISP Working Group. The basic idea behind the separation is that the Internet architecture combines two functio ...

Compiler

This section describes how a compiler transforms Lisp code to C.

Source code

The

Fibonacci number In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a integer sequence, sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start ...

function (this classic definition used in most benchmarks is not the most efficient way to compute fib) (defun fib (n) (cond ((eq n 1) 1) ((eq n 2) 1) (t (+ (fib (- n 1)) (fib (- n 2))))))

LAP intermediate code

Lisp compiler translates Lisp source code to the following intermediate code. It is followed by a

peephole optimization Peephole optimization is an optimization technique performed on a small set of compiler-generated instructions; the small set is known as the peephole or window. Peephole optimization involves changing the small set of instructions to an equiva ...

pass that uses this intermediate format to analyze and optimize instructions. After optimization, final LAP code is: ((fentry fib 1 0 0) (param 0) (jeq _l004 '1) (jneq _l003 '2) (move a1 '1) (return) _l003 (gsub1 a1) (recurse 1) (move a2 a1) (param 0) (gsub a1 '2) (recurse 1) (gadd a2 a1) _l004 (return) (end))

C code translation

Finally, C code generator uses LAP code to translate instructions in C. static POINTER OLDEFCOMPILED1(olfib_00, p1)

Style guide

Line length

OpenLisp accepts lines having unlimited length. The recommended style is that each line of text in code should have at most 80

characters per line In typography and computing, characters per line (CPL) or terminal width refers to the maximal number of monospaced characters that may appear on a single line. It is similar to line length in typesetting. History The limit of the line le ...

Adoption

It has been chosen by

SDF Public Access Unix System Super Dimension Fortress (SDF, also known as freeshell.org) is a non-profit public access UNIX shell provider on the Internet. It has been in continual operation since 1987 as a non-profit social club. The name is derived from the Japanese an ...

nonprofit public access

systems on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

as one of its programming languages available online. Bricsys uses OpenLisp to implement

AutoLISP AutoLISP is a dialect of the programming language Lisp built specifically for use with the full version of AutoCAD and its derivatives, which include ''AutoCAD Map 3D'', ''AutoCAD Architecture'' and ''AutoCAD Mechanical''. Neither the application ...

in its Bricscad computer-aided design (CAD) system. MEVA is entirely written with OpenLisp. Università degli Studi di Palermo uses OpenLisp to teach Lisp.

References

External links

* *
LinkedIn GroupISLISP on Software Preservation Group
{{Lisp programming language Lisp programming language family Lisp (programming language) Programming languages created in 1988