A system is defined with a
defsystem
form in an ordinary Lisp source file. This form must be loaded into the Lisp image in order to define the system in the environment. Once loaded, operations can be carried out on the system by invoking Lisp functions, or, more conveniently, by using the system browser.
CL-USER 5 > (compile-system 'debug-app :force t)
would compile every file in a system called
debug-app
.
Note: When defining a hierarchy of systems, the leaf systems must be defined first -- that is, a system must be declared before any systems that include it.
By convention, system definitions are placed in a file called
defsys.lisp
which usually resides in the same directory as the members of the system.
The full syntax of
defsystem
is given in the
LispWorks Reference Manual
. Below is a brief introduction.