Objective-C is a C-like object-oriented programming language that is used on Mac OS X to implement the Cocoa API. The LispWorks Objective-C interface is an extension to the interface described in the LispWorks Foreign Language Interface User Guide and Reference Manual to support calling Objective-C methods and also to provide defining forms for Objective-C classes and methods implemented in Lisp. This manual assumes that you are familiar with the LispWorks FLI, the Objective-C language and the Cocoa API where appropriate, and it uses the same notation and conventions as the LispWorks Foreign Language Interface User Guide and Reference Manual .
Note: the LispWorks Objective-C interface is only available on the Macintosh.
The remainder of this chapter describes the LispWorks Objective-C interface, which is generally used in conjunction with the Cocoa API (see The Cocoa Interface). Examples in this chapter assume that the current package uses the objc package.
Before calling any of the Objective-C interface functions, the runtime system must be initialized. This is done by calling ensure-objc-initialized, optionally passing a list of foreign modules to be loaded. For example, the following will initialize and load Cocoa:
(objc:ensure-objc-initialized
:modules
'("/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation"
"/System/Library/Frameworks/Cocoa.framework/Versions/A/Cocoa"))
LispWorks Objective-C and Cocoa Interface User Guide and Reference Manual - 21 Mar 2017