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Lisp: An Introduction
• Lisp – List Processing language
– Developed by John McCarthy, MIT, in the late
1950s
• the original idea was to implement a language based on
mathematical functions that McCarthy was using to
model problem solving
• a grad student implemented the first interpreter, and it
was quickly adopted for AI programming:
– symbolic computing
– list processing
– recursion
• early Lisp was based almost entirely on recursive and so
– Lisp had no local variables nor iterative control structures
(loops)
– and since Lisp was interpreted, there was no compiler for early
Lisp

More on Lisp
• In part because this was early in the history of high
level languages, and in part because of the desire to
support AI
– Lisp used dynamic scoping
– Lisp had no compiler
– Lisp had no local variables
– Lisp was slow
• But, because Lisp was interpreted
– It was easy to prototype systems and build larger scale
systems than a compiled language
– Lisp had features not available in other early languages
• Recursion
• Linked lists
• Dynamic memory allocation
• Typeless variables

Lisps, Lisps and More Lisps
• The original Lisp was both inefficient and difficult to use
– Other Lisp dialects were released by people trying to further the
language
• they added a compiler, local variables, static scoping, etc
• while Scheme is the most recognized Lisp to come out of these efforts,
others include Qlisp, Elisp, Interlisp, etc
– Specialized hardware was manufactured to support Lisp:
• hardware that had large heap memory spaces and optimized routines for
garbage collection
• interestingly, the first GUI was implemented for Lisp machines
• however, many researchers were put off by the high cost of these
specialized machines, so there was also a push for implementing many
of the necessary Lisp hardware mechanisms in general-purpose
computers leading to both diversity (among compilers and dialects) and
innovation
– but because of all the different Lisps, sharing of ideas and code became
awkward if not prohibitive

Toward a Standard: Common Lisp
• DARPA sponsored an effort in the early 1980s to develop
a standard for Lisp, and so Common Lisp (CL) was born
– However, among the Lisp community, there were hard-fought
battles
• West coast users often used Interlisp
• East coast users often used MACLisp
• European communities may have used yet other Lisps
• and Scheme was often taught in colleges
– CL would take the best attributes found in MacLisp with some
influence from Zetalisp, Scheme and Interlisp
• it would also provide a number of imperative features (e.g., loops)
• ANSI created a standard for CL around 1990
• the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) was added to CL making the
language roughly equivalent in size and capability to C++
• while not as recognized as C++, Common Lisp is a very useful and
flexible language, we will study it here

Goals of CL
• Commonality – a common dialect of Lisp for which
extensions (for given hardware) should be
unnecessary
• Portability and Compatibility
• Consistency – prior Lisps were internally inconsistent
so that a compiler or interpreter might assign different
semantics to a correct program
• Expressiveness and Power
• Efficiency – for instance, optimizing compilers and
instructions that perform efficient operations on lists
• Stability – changes in CL will be made only with due
deliberation

Some CL Uses
• CL is a very successful language in that
– it is extremely powerful as an AI tool
– those that use it love it
• And yet CL is a very uncommon language because
– it is very complicated
– most software development is in C++ (with some in Java, C#, C, Python, Ada, etc)
such that few programmers would choose to use CL for development
• The most important software developed from CL includes:
– Emacs
– G2 (a real-time expert system)
– AutoCAD
– Igor Engraver (musical notation editor and publisher)
– Yahoo Store
• Up until the early 1990s, most AI research was still done in Lisp, most using
Common Lisp
– however, once C++ added objects, many researchers switched to C++ because
• their graduate students had more familiarity with C++
• obtaining C++ compilers is often cheaper and easier than CL compilers and environments
• C++ programs will run faster than CL programs (not always true, but generally true)

Why Study CL?
• Learn about functional programming
• Learn how to utilize recursion better
• Learn about symbolic computing
• Gain experience in other languages and syntax
• Get a better idea of such concepts as scope, binding,
memory allocation, etc
• Learn a little about AI problem solving
• But primarily: learn a new language
– one that is very VERY different from what you have already
experienced
– but also a very rich and complex language
• CL contains 978 defined symbols, macros and functions not including
anything available in libraries or what you might define yourself

Lisp Basics
• Everything in a Lisp program is either
– An atom
• a single literal value which could be
– a number
– a symbol like ’hello
» not to be confused with a string, a symbol cannot be subdivided in
any way
– a character
– T or nil
– A list
• lists are denoted by ( )
– lists can contain nothing (empty list), one or more atoms, sublists, or some
combination of these
– In Lisp, all variables are pointers that point to an atom or a list,
but like Java, these pointers do not need dereferencing (unlike
C or C++)
• there are also sequences of different types (vectors, arrays, strings,
structures, objects), these are neither lists nor atoms

Variables, Lists, Pointers
• All variables are in fact pointers
• A variable’s pointer points to an item in heap memory
– like Java, there is no dereferencing (unlike C or C++)
– unlike Java, all items are pointed to whether they are
objects, strings, arrays, numbers, atoms, whatever
• Lists are not only pointed to by the variable that
defines the list, but each list element contains a
pointer to the next item
– The structure of a list item is actually two pointers
• the CAR is the pointer to the item
• the CDR is the pointer to the next list item
• this structure looks like this
– This structure is known as a cons cell
CAR
CDR

List Structures
• A List then consists of a group of these cons
structures, each structure has
– one pointer (the car) that points to the atom or sublist
– one pointer (the cdr) that either points to the remainder of
the list or is nil (like null in Java or NULL in C)
( A ( D E F ) B C )
A B C
D E F
Cons cells are needed to make lists
The cdr should be a pointer to the next
cons cell in the list (or nil if this is the
last cons cell, as with the cells storing
C and F) but in some cases, you might
put a datum in the cdr, this would result
in a dotted pair: (a . b)
a b

Pointers and Pointers
• Things can get confusing in Lisp because the variables
are pointers, and the things that they point to may also be
pointers
– Look at the list example on the last slide, a given cons cell has
two pointers, one pointing to the car and one to the cdr (which
is usually another cons cell or the value nil)
– When you declare a variable, you are allocating memory to
store the pointer, not the datum
• (let (a b) …)  allocates space for a and b
• (setf a 5)  allocates space for 5, adjusts a to point at 5
• (setf b 6)  allocates space for 6, adjusts b to point at 6
• (setf b 5)  will this allocate a new 5 or adjust b to point at the already
existing 5? This differs depending on the implementation!
a b
a 5 b 6 5
= nil
= nil
?

Lisp Code vs. Data
• Lisp code is placed inside of lists
– All* Lisp instructions are function calls
– All Lisp function calls are written in prefix notation (name
param1 param2 …)
– All Lisp function calls return a value, which can be used in
another call
• example: (square (+ 3 5))  (+ 3 5) returns 8, (square 8) returns 64
• Lisp data are most commonly placed in lists
– So in Lisp, data and code have the same look to them, this
makes it easy to write code that manipulates code rather than
data (code that can generate code for instance)
• * - there are exceptions to this statement that we will explore throughout
this course

Lisp Interpreter
• One of the more unique aspects of Lisp (as opposed to
say Java or C) is that it is an interpreted language
– You are given a command line where you can type in
commands where a command can be
• a single executable statement (e.g., (+ x y))
• a definition (defining a new function, defining a variable, defining a
class, instantiating an object, etc)
– you see the response immediately and you don’t have to have already
compiled anything, this lets you test out code while you write it
– The Interpreter works on a REPL cycle:
• Read – read the latest item typed in at the command line (ended by
<enter>)
• Eval – evaluate what was typed in (execute it)
• Print – print the result to the screen for immediate feedback
• Loop – do it all over again
– Note: you can type definitions and instructions in an editor and
load it all at once or compile it and load the compiled file

Example Session with REPL
CL-USER 1 > 'hello
HELLO
CL-USER 2 > (print 'hello)
HELLO
HELLO
CL-USER 3 > (setf a 'hello)
HELLO
CL-USER 4 > a
HELLO
CL-USER 5 > 'a
A
Type in a statement, it is evaluated
’hello evaluates the symbol hello
print is a function, it prints the item and
also returns the item
setf is a function that has a side effect of
adjusting a pointer and returns the value
that the pointer is pointing to
evaluate a returns what a points to
notice here the quote mark says “do not
evaluate, just return”

Example
Session
CL-USER 40 > (defun findmin (lis)
(let ((temp (car lis)))
(dolist (a (cdr lis))
(if (< a temp) (setf temp a)))
temp))
FINDMIN
CL-USER 41 > (defun sortlist (lis)
(let (temp (size (length lis)) (sortedlist nil)
(currentmin 1000))
(dotimes (i size)
(setf temp (findmin lis))
(if (< temp currentmin) (setf currentmin temp))
(setf lis (remove temp lis))
(setf sortedlist (append sortedlist (list temp))))
sortedlist))
SORTLIST
CL-USER 42 > (sortlist '(5 3 4 7 2 1 6))
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7)

The Debugger
• Unfortunately, the run-time environment is where most
of your errors will be caught
– Every time the interpreter does not understand something, you
are thrown into the debugger
– We will explore the debugger in detail later in the semester,
here are a couple of comments:
• the debugger lets you inspect the run-time stack, you can see the values
of local variables and parameters, and the order that functions were
called
• you can correct some mistakes and then resume execution without
having to abort what you are doing, fix errors and start over
– For now though, we will simply abort out of the debugger any
time an error arises
• This differs from implementation to implementation, but in LispWorks,
look at the options and then type c: # where # is the number of the abort
option (for instance, c: 1)

Example With Debugger
CL-USER 43 > (sortlist b)
Error: The variable B is unbound.
1 (continue) Try evaluating B again.
2 Return the value of :B instead.
3 Specify a value to use this time instead of evaluating B.
4 Specify a value to set B to.
5 (abort) Return to level 0.
6 Return to top loop level 0.
Type :b for backtrace, :c <option number> to proceed, or :? for other options
CL-USER 44 : 1 > :c 3
Enter a form to be evaluated: '(5 3 2 4 1)
(1 2 3 4 5)

Example
Continued
CL-USER 62 : 1 > (sortlist b)
Error: The variable B is unbound.
1 (continue) Try evaluating B again.
2 Return the value of :B instead.
3 Specify a value to use this time instead of evaluating B.
4 Specify a value to set B to.
6 Return to debug level 1.
7 Return a value to use.
8 Supply a new first argument.
9 Return to level 0.
CL-USER 63 : 2 > :c 4
Enter a form to be evaluated: '(5 3 4 6 2 1)
(1 2 3 4 5 6)

Example Continued
CL-USER 66 > (sortlist)
Error: Call ((LAMBDA (#:LIS) (DECLARE (SPECIAL:SOURCE #)
(LAMBDA-NAME SORTLIST))
(BLOCK #:SORTLIST (LET # # #:SORTEDLIST)))) has the
wrong number of arguments.
CL-USER 67 : 1 > :b
Interpreted call to SORTLIST
Call to SPECIAL::%EVAL-NOHOOK
Call to IV:PROCESS-TOP-LEVEL
Call to CAPI::CAPI-TOP-LEVEL-FUNCTION
Call to CAPI::INTERACTIVE-PANE-TOP-LOOP
Call to (SUBFUNCTION MP::PROCESS-SG-FUNCTION
MP::INITIALIZE-PROCESS-STACK)

Getting Output: Dribble
• You can send output to a text file, which we will cover
later in the semester
– for now, to output your entire session in the CL environment,
use dribble
– form: (dribble “filename”)
• from this point forward, everything that you type in and everything that
is returned (even debugger messages) are sent to the textfile “filename”
• to stop (or turn off) the dribble, type (dribble)
– if “filename” is just the name of a file, the file is created and
stored in the current directory
– you can specify a directory, but since is an escape character
(much like in Java), you have to specify
• as in (dribble “C:csc375output1.txt”)
– if you specify a filename that already exists, anything that you
dribble to the file is appended (the file is not overwritten)
• this allows you to join a previous session

Defining Functions
• There are a number of built-in functions in CL
– We will explore them throughout the semester
• For now, we briefly consider how to define a
function
– The basic form is:
• (defun name (params) body)
– name is the name of your function to have, it can be any legal CL
name (and as long as the name is not a pre-defined CL name but it
can be a name that you had previously used yourself)
– params are the names of parameters being passed into the function,
they can be any legal name, and there are no types associated with
them in the definition, the list can be empty as in ( )
– body is one or more CL function calls, after the last one is called,
whatever value that last function call returns is returned by this
function

Examples
• Type in (square 5) and
the function returns
25
– x is 5
– the function performs
(* 5 5)
• progn is used to
denote a block of
function calls where
the result of the last
function is returned
from the block
(defun square (x) (* x x))
(defun largest (x y) (if (> x y) x y))
;; if (x > y) return x; else return y;
(defun printnumbers (x)
(if (> x 0)
(progn
(printnumbers (- x 1))
(print x))))
;; recursive version, if (x > 0) recursively
;; call the function with x-1, then print x
(defun printnumbers2 (x)
(do ((i 1 (+ i 1)))
((= i (+ x 1)))
(print i)))
;; here, a do loop is used to iterate from i=1 to x, stopping once i = x+1

Recursive vs Iterative
• Here we can clearly see
the value of recursion
when implementing
simple operations
– the recursive version is
short and matches our
mathematical notion of
factorial
– the iterative version
requires a local variable
for the product
(defun factorial (x)
(if (< x 1) 1 (* x (factorial (- x 1)))))
;; if x < 1 then return 1, otherwise
;; return x * factorial(x-1)
(defun factorial2 (x)
(let ((y 1)) ;; y is a local var = 1
(do ((i 1 (+ i 1))) ;; loop on i
((= i (+ x 1))) ;; until i = x+1
(setf y (* y i))) ;; y = y * i
y)) ;; return y as the last action

Lisp and Variables
• There are generally three kinds of variables
– Global variables – defined in the run-time
environment (at the command line) or outside of a
function in a file
• these can be accessed within a function, but only having
been declared as special
– Local variables – defined in a function using the let
statement, or within the scope of a specific
instruction, such as the loop counter(s) in a do
statement
• these can only be accessed inside their scope, as soon as
their scope ends, you can no longer access them
– Parameters – much like local variables, but they are
available throughout the entire function

Variable Types
• As described earlier, variables are actually pointers,
but unlike C, the pointers are not typed
– This means that the value being pointed to by a pointer can
be of one type and later the pointer can point to a value of
another type
– With a few exceptions, variables in CL are not typed
• notable exceptions to not typing variables are objects and structures
• However, all variables are type checked at run-time to
make sure that a value is being treated correctly
– So (* 5 ’a) will yield a run-time error rather than an
incorrect value

Values
• There are generally 3 kinds of values:
– Numbers
• pretty self explanatory although Lisp contains several types of numbers
– integer, float, fraction, complex (contains an integer or float portion and an
imaginary portion) and more
– you can combine types in an operation, Lisp will convert the answer to
whichever type is necessary
• numbers are not restricted in size other than the size of what your
computer’s memory can store!
– Atoms
• do not confuse these with strings, an atom is atomic (you can’t for
instance do substring or charAt type operations), the atom however can
represent any symbolic item (word or words)
– Lists
• as we discussed earlier
– There are also characters, strings, arrays, structures, objects and
more that we will discuss in detail later in the semester

Numbers in More Detail
• Unless otherwise indicated, numbers are stored as
– Integers
– Fractions
• You can override the default by indicating
– Floating point (in either decimal or scientific notation)
– Hexadecimal (#x precedes the value as in #x54B3E)
– Octal (#o as in #o5102)
– Any base up to 36 of the form #brvalue as in #6r3051 or
#36rAZ9Q5
• base 36 includes all 10 digits and the 26 upper case letters
– Complex: #c(value1 value2) = value1 + value2*i (i is the
square root of -1)
• The result of any arithmetic operation will be in the form
of the widest value (e.g. int + fraction = fraction)
– Except for / which will place integer divisions as a fraction

Operations on Numbers
• Arithmetic functions:
– +, -, *, /
• Note that / will always return quotient and remainder, there is
nothing equivalent to “integer division” as we see in Java
• But there are functions for truncate, round, ceiling, floor and mod
– (truncate 5 3)  1 (equivalent to 5 / 3)
– (mod 5 3)  2 (equivalent to 5 % 3)
• Common Lisp will always reduce fractions as much as possible, so
(/ 6 8)  ¾ and (/ 6 2)  3
– Now consider: (+ #c(3 5) #c(2 1))  #c(5 6)
– But (* #c(3 2) #c(3 -2))  13, why?
• Comparison functions:
– <, >, =, /=, <=, >=
– EQL is similar to = but more restrictive, it says “numbers
must be equal and be the same type”
• (= 5 5.0) is T, (EQL 5 5.0) is nil

Preventing Evaluation
• One problem in Lisp is that everything entered at
the command line is evaluated
– (+ 3 5)  evaluate +, apply it to the evaluation of 3
and 5
– (+ a b)  evaluate +, apply it to the evaluation of a
and b
• a and b are variables, so evaluating a returns the value it
points to (if a = 5 and b = 4, then (+ a b) returns 9)
– (length lis) – returns the number of elements in lis
– What if lis is not a variable, but the list (a b c)?
• (length (a b c))  this does not return 3, instead it will
probably cause an error because (a b c) is interpreted as
“call function a passing parameters b and c”

Quote
• So, to avoid some thing being evaluated, use (quote
thing) as in (length (quote (a b c)))
– we can use quote to generate a symbol as in (quote hello)
or a list as in (quote (a b c))
– We will often use (quote …) so Lisp gives us a shortcut
way of specifying it, ’
• Sometimes it will be confusing as to when to quote
something and when not to
– In general, if you have a list of data, you will want to quote
the list so that the first item is not interpreted as a function
call
– If you are referencing a variable, do not quote it, if you are
referencing an atom, quote it
• NOTE: ` has an entirely different meaning so make sure you use
the forward quote or (quote …), we will discuss the backward
quote later in the semester

Special Forms
• I said earlier that all Lisp code is function calls
– There are some notable exceptions called special forms
– Here are some special forms
• defun –used to define a new function as already discussed
• if and cond –Lisp conditional statements
• quote – return the item without evaluating it
• let – bind variables to memory locations, possibly initializing them
• and, or – and returns either T or nil, or returns either nil or the first non-
nil item
• progn – declare a block of functions to make up the body of some
function or instruction, returning the value returned by the last function
– all of these are actually macros, we will cover how to define macros later
in the semester, but this gives you the flexibility of writing operations that
are different from functions

Basic I/O
• CL has very powerful I/O facilities
– However, to get started, we will look at two simple
I/O operations:
• (read) – get the next input from the keyboard and return it
– (setf x (read)) ;; accepts one input and stores it in x
• (print x) – sends x to the run-time window, but only works
on a single item
• if you want to print multiple items, put them in a list as in
– (print (list x y z))
– Note: this output will look like this: (5 3 1) rather than 5 3 1
– Later on, we will examine formatted input and
output, inputting from other sources, outputting to
different windows, and file I/O

Basic Control Structures
• We will explore the control forms later, here are four to
get started
– if and if-else:
• (if (condition) then)
• (if (condition) then else)
– then – what to return if the condition is true
– else – what to return if the condition is false
• these will usually be function calls, but could be values to return
– (if (/= y 0) (/ x y) 0) – divide x by y or return 0 if y = 0
– iteration: dotimes and dolist
• (dotimes (var num) …)
– iterates from 0 to num-1, setting var to each value one at a time
– (dotimes (i n) (print (+ i 1))) – prints the numbers 1 through n
• (dolist (var lis) …)
– iterates for each item in the list lis, with var assigned to each
– (dolist (a lis) (print a)) – prints each item of lis one at a time

Putting It All Together
• We will rely heavily on the REPL interpreter
– Start up Common Lisp
– Type in a function, if it is interpreted correctly, there will be
no error
– Now you can call your function to test it out
– If it isn’t right, redefine it with another defun statement
– Evolve your code over time
• Alternatively, type your code into an editor
– This allows you to write your code as a series of functions
so that you can get a more global idea of what you have to
do, and save your code in a text file
– Copy and paste your code from the editor into the
interpreter
– Or, save the file and load the entire file at one time (usually
you will only do this after you know all of your individual
functions work!)

Apropos
• Can’t find the right symbol (function) for some
particular application but you know its something
like foobar? Use Apropos
– (apropos “foobar”)
– (apropos “foobar” :packagename)
– apropos will look up all defined entities with the
string “foobar” in it and return the list
• if you specify a package, it only lists those items in the
given package
• most likely, you will want to limit your search to the
Common Lisp package, :cl
• (apropos “reverse”) returns somewhere around 46 entries
whereas (apropos “reverse” :cl) returns just 2

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