Hello *,
On Thu, 1 Jul 2004, Camm Maguire wrote:
> GCL's describe/info functions are implemented in lisp. I don't see
> *prompt-prefix* or *prompt-suffix* in the ANSI spec. What is the
> status of these variables? What precisely are they supposed to do?
> Are they CMUCL specific? Do you want a GCL analog?
No, these variables are not in the lisp standard. They are declared and
used in maxima. In macsys.lisp:
(defvar *prompt-prefix* "")
(defvar *prompt-suffix* "")
...
(DEFUN MAIN-PROMPT ()
;; instead off using this STRIPDOLLAR hackery, the
;; MREAD function should call MFORMAT to print the prompt,
;; and take a format string and format arguments.
;; Even easier and more general is for MREAD to take
;; a FUNARG as the prompt. -gjc
(FORMAT () "~A(~A~D) ~A" *prompt-prefix*
(STRIPDOLLAR $INCHAR) $LINENUM *prompt-suffix*))
They are used in a few more places. The idea is: each prompt (defined as
an output immediately preceeding user input) should have *prompt-prefix*
prepended and *prompt-suffix* appended. In texmacs-maxima-5.9.1.lisp, they
are redefined:
(setf *prompt-prefix* "\2channel:prompt\5\2latex:\\red ")
(setf *prompt-suffix* "\\black\5\5")
maxima based on clisp, cmucl, sbcl, when executing describe(something);,
uses cl-info.lisp. This is a port of the gcl's info.lsp which should work
in any common lisp. This port obeys *prompt-prefix* and *prompt-suffix*:
(defun print-prompt (prompt-count)
(format t "~&~a~a~a"
*prompt-prefix*
(if (zerop prompt-count)
"Enter space-separated numbers, ALL or NONE: "
"Still waiting: ")
*prompt-suffix*))
gcl maxima uses the native gcl's info which does not do this. Therefore,
describe does not work in gcl-maxima when called from TeXmacs.
Is it possible to insert this to the gcl's info.lsp (and not to upset all
the users of gcl who don't need maxima)?
Best wishes,
Andrey Grozin