running LISP interpreter as background process
 

Hi there

I try to run some lisp interpreter as a background process communicating with other applications by reading and writing from files.
The intention is as follows:

- I start the lisp interpreter as a backgroud process
- a file with initial commands (initfile) is loaded
- the interpreter stays active, waiting for additional commands or an exit signal
- every time a new line is added to the initfile (or another specified file) the interpreter reads this line, evaluates it and writes the output to another file
- the interpreter stops when receiving order to do so....

My problem is:

every time the interpreter reaches the initfile's EOF it exits, so I have to reload the whole thing with every new line

I tried:

- clisp <infile >outfile &
- nohup 0<&- 1<infile >outfile &
- nohup 0<&- >/dev/null #no way to communicate

All without success

I hope you can help me, thx

Ps: I am working on a x86 32Bit with linux

You could use a fifo:
But it might be better to write a lisp program to listen on a socket.

if you have an init file for clisp

it's

clisp -i init.lisp

it won't exit then.
and it will be in normal interactive mode.

You cannot monitor a file in the way you suggest.
when you open a file it's read there and then and closed, any
subsequent changes will not work.
A fifo won't do what you want either.

what are you trying to do?

(It's good to see someone using lisp though.)

sockets are easy if you want them...

Here is a simple socket server...

run it like so:

clisp -i your-init-file socket.lisp

to illustrate it
you can interact in another xterm using netcat

nc localhost 50123

First of all my excuse for the late answer...

I have a program with an output like this:
(root
(class living_thing
(spec human
(prop has_legs))
(spec bird (prop has_wings))))

The program spits that kind of code out whenever it has computed its own input.
Now I have three problems:

1. How do I feed my program time after time (solved by FIFO)
2. How do i lookup the data:
here the problems are:
1. I dont know the structures depht (which is variable) 2. I dont know how to retrieve the information once stored because of 1.
3. How to store it in a DB (solved conceptually by my own)


Any ideas?

what sort of data structure?
is it a hash-table?

now you wondered why lisp has read macros and prin1
did you know that you can prin1 a lisp data structure out to a file
(a list, a hash table etc.)
then read it back in again as is!