sbcl-image-builder

Lisp image build for SBCL

This is my build system to create custom SBCL executables preloaded with a collection of Quicklisp libraries. It will compile the libraries and embed them in a SBCL executable which is very fast to load.

The build script sbcl-core.lisp provides a basic set of commonly used utility libraries. This can be edited or used as a template to create more specific Lisp environments.

Requirements

• SBCL in the program path
• a copy of ASDF in ~/.common-lisp/asdf.lisp
• a Quicklisp installation in ~/.common-lisp/quicklisp/

If you prefer to use different paths than these, edit them in the build script.

Build

Run make. Install with make install.

Customization

Find relevant sections in the build script and list systems you want embedded, and add your custom initialization code.

• LOAD-SYSTEM NAME loads a system and adds it.
• USE-SYSTEM NAME &REST PACKAGES loads a system, adds it, and imports package symbols into CL-USER. If no package was named, imports the package with the same name as the system.
• INITIALIZE &BODY BODY adds code to run at initialization.

Usage in Emacs

Make your Lisp image known to SLIME, and optionally make it the default.

As a benefit of constructing an image with USE-SYSTEM, SLIME will automatically recognize the packages and their symbols when used in any context.

(setq slime-lisp-implementations
      '((sbcl ("sbcl"))
        (sbcl-core ("sbcl-core")))
      slime-default-lisp 'sbcl-core)