Examples using Allegro CL

This document contains the following sections:

1.0 Examples introduction

This document discusses examples provided with Allegro CL. Example code, often with additional documentation, are located in the examples/ subdirectory of the Allegro CL directory. The additional documentation is typically in a file with a name like readme.txt. If no such file is present, the documentation should be found in the comments in the source files.

Examples serve various purposes. Two important purposes are (1) illustration, and (2) convenience. Examples are illustrative of the features of Allegro CL, showing how they may be used, and of proper coding practice. And examples can be useful in themselves, doing something close to what you might want to do, thus saving you the trouble to devise the algorithm and write (most of) the code for doing it. Of course, examples which do both are best, but not always the easiest to provide.

There are other sources of examples for Allegro CL, and new ones are added from time to time. Among the other sources are:

• The Tech Corner in the Support section of the Franz Inc. Web Site regularly discusses examples, typically using special features of Allegro CL.
• http://opensource.franz.com has many examples, all open source, for various utilities and other things written in Lisp.
• There are also brief examples in the various Allegro CL essay documents (see introduction.htm for a list of essay examples.

Note that the subdirectories of examples/ that are Windows-only are not included with the Unix distributions and those that are Unix-only are not included with the Windows distribution.

In general, licensed user of Allegro CL may use example code freely in their applications, so long as the source is identified.

1.1 Common Graphics and IDE examples

The Examples tab of the Navigator dialog (displayed with the Help | Navigator menu command when running the IDE on Windows) has a list of examples for Common Graphics and the Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

The Interface Builder Tutorial (see the Tutorial tab of the Navigator dialog, displayed with the Help | Tutorial menu command) is a worked out application that illustrates Common Graphics programming techniques.

Common Graphics and the IDE are implemented on Windows only.

1.2 Allegro CL RPC examples

The Allegro CL RPC (Remote Procedure Call) facility provides a way to for two lisp programs to communicate. See rpc.htm. Examples of the facility are in examples/aclrpc/.

1.3 The AddCaps application

This application allows you to organize, view, and add captions to (whence "AddCaps") to images stored as computer files. The files are in examples/addcaps/. Note that you must be licensed to produce applications in order to use these files.

1.4 AllegroServe examples

AllegroServe is a Web Server facility, as described in aserve/aserve.html. There are various examples in examples/aserve/

1.5 The checklinks tool

The utility defined in examples/checklinks/ produces an executable which checks a collection of HTML files for broken links. Note that you must be licensed to produce applications in order to use these files.

1.6 Lisp as a DLL example

See dll.htm for information on the Lisp as a DLL example (Windows only, of course) found in examples/dll/.

1.7 jLinker examples

The jLinker facility provides a way to execute Java from Lisp. See jlinker.htm. Examples of the facility are in examples/jlinker/.

1.8 The simple network paging protocol example

The simple network paging protocol examples in examples/snpp/ produces a program which will produce an executable which can be used to page over the network. There are two Lisp source files (snpp.cl and deliver.cl) and a Makefile. Note that you must be licensed to produce applications in order to use these files.

1.9 Encapsulating streams examples

The examples in the examples/streams/ directory illustrate the use of encapsulating streams. They are described in Examples of stream encapsulations in streams.htm.

1.10 The skeleton test application

The files in the examples/testapp/ directory make a skeleton application using generate-application, the application building function in Allegro CL. The files show how you can automate the application generation procedure, and provides a sample makefile. Note that you must be licensed to produce applications in order to use these files.

1.11 An example using Telnet to communicate with a running Lisp process

This example is for Unix only. If you arrange to have a running Lisp application set up a server process to listen for telnet connections via the socket interface, you can then telnet into the running Lisp, usually for debugging but also for other purposes. The code in examples/tserver.cl/ shows you how to do this.

1.12 Lisp as a Unix Shared Library

See unix-shared-library.htm for information on the Lisp as a Unix Shared Library example (Unix only, of course) found in examples/unix-shared-library/.

1.13 XML-RPC examples

The new Allegro CL XML-RPC utility implements classes and functions to support the XML-RPC protocol for remote function calls through HTTP connections. Th directory examples/xmlrpc/ contains example using XML-RPC. See ../xmlrpc/xml-rpc.txt (a copy of that file is in examples/xmlrpc/). The examples are fairly elementary and are design to show how the facility works.

Copyright (c) 1998-2002, Franz Inc. Oakland, CA., USA. All rights reserved.
Documentation for Allegro CL version 6.2. This page was not revised from the 6.1 page.
Created 2002.2.26.