LIPS Programming
Farhad Muhammad Riaz
LISP - Overview
John McCarthy invented LISP in 1958, shortly after the
development of FORTRAN. It was first implemented by Steve
Russell on an IBM 704 computer.
It is particularly suitable for Artificial Intelligence programs, as it
processes symbolic information effectively.
Common Lisp originated, during the 1980s and 1990s, in an
attempt to unify the work of several implementation groups that
were successors to Maclisp, like ZetaLisp and NIL (New
Implementation of Lisp) etc.
It serves as a common language, which can be easily extended for
specific implementation.
Programs written in Common LISP do not depend on machine-
specific characteristics, such as word length etc.
Features of Common LISP
It is machine-independent
It uses iterative design methodology, and easy extensibility.
It allows updating the programs dynamically.
It provides high level debugging.
It provides advanced object-oriented programming.
It provides a convenient macro system.
It provides wide-ranging data types like, objects, structures, lists,
vectors, adjustable arrays, hash-tables, and symbols.
It is expression-based.
It provides an object-oriented condition system.
It provides a complete I/O library.
It provides extensive control structures.
Applications Built in LISP
Large successful applications built in Lisp.
Emacs
G2
AutoCad
Igor Engraver
Yahoo Store
LISP - Environment Setup
Local Environment Setup
If you are still willing to set up your environment for Lisp programming
language, you need the following two softwares available on your computer, (a)
Text Editor and (b) The Lisp Executer.
Text Editor
This will be used to type your program. Examples of few editors include
Windows Notepad, OS Edit command, Brief, Epsilon, EMACS, and vim or vi.
Name and version of text editor can vary on different operating systems. For
example, Notepad will be used on Windows, and vim or vi can be used on
windows as well as Linux or UNIX.
The files you create with your editor are called source files and contain program
source code. The source files for Lisp programs are typically named with the
extension ".lisp".
Before starting your programming, make sure you have one text editor in place
and you have enough experience to write a computer program, save it in a file,
finally execute it.
LISP - Environment Setup
The Lisp Executer
The source code written in source file is the human readable source for
your program. It needs to be "executed", to turn into machine language
so that your CPU can actually execute the program as per instructions
given.
This Lisp programming language will be used to execute your source
code into final executable program. I assume you have basic
knowledge about a programming language.
CLISP is the GNU Common LISP multi-architechtural compiler used
for setting up LISP in Windows. The windows version emulates a unix
environment using MingW under windows. The installer takes care of
this and automatically adds clisp to the windows PATH variable.
You can get the latest CLISP for Windows from here -
https://sourceforge.net/projects/clisp/files/latest/download
How to use CLISP
During installation, clisp is automatically added to your
PATH variable if you select the option
(RECOMMENDED) This means that you can simply
open a new Command Prompt window and type “clisp” to
bring up the compiler.
To run a *.lisp or *.lsp file, simply use −
clisp hello.lisp
LISP - Program Structure
LISP expressions are called symbolic expressions or s-
expressions. The s-expressions are composed of three
valid objects, atoms, lists and strings.
Any s-expression is a valid program.
LISP programs run either on an interpreter or
as compiled code.
The interpreter checks the source code in a repeated loop,
which is also called the read-evaluate-print loop (REPL).
It reads the program code, evaluates it, and prints the
values returned by the program.
A Simple Program
Let us write an s-expression to find the sum of three numbers 7,
9 and 11. To do this, we can type at the interpreter prompt.
LISP Uses Prefix Notation
Evaluation of LISP Programs
Evaluation of LISP programs has two parts −
Translation of program text into Lisp objects by a reader program
Implementation of the semantics of the language in terms of these
objects by an evaluator program
The evaluation process takes the following steps −
The reader translates the strings of characters to LISP objects or s-
expressions.
The evaluator defines syntax of Lisp forms that are built from s-
expressions. This second level of evaluation defines a syntax that
determines which s-expressions are LISP forms.
The evaluator works as a function that takes a valid LISP form as an
argument and returns a value. This is the reason why we put the LISP
expression in parenthesis, because we are sending the entire
expression/form to the evaluator as arguments.
The 'Hello World' Program
Basic Building Blocks in LISP
LISP programs are made up of three basic building blocks
atom
list
string
An atom is a number or string of contiguous characters. It
includes numbers and special characters.
A list is a sequence of atoms and/or other lists enclosed in
parentheses
A string is a group of characters enclosed in double
quotation marks.
Adding Comments
The semicolon symbol (;) is used for indicating a
comment line.
For Example,
Data Types
LISP - Decision Making
LIPS Functions
Structures
