FAQ: Object-oriented Programming in Lisp 5/7 [Monthly posting]
Mark Kantrowitz
Archive-name: lisp-faq/part5
Last-Modified: Thu Feb 13 09:10:34 1997 by Mark Kantrowitz
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;;; Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Lisp ***************
;;; ****************************************************************
;;; Written by Mark Kantrowitz and Barry Margolin
;;; lisp_5.faq
This post contains Part 5 of the Lisp FAQ. It is cross-posted to the
newsgroup comp.lang.clos because it contains material of interest to
people concerned with CLOS, PCL and object-oriented programming in
Lisp. The other parts of the Lisp FAQ are posted only to the
newsgroups comp.lang.lisp and news.answers.
If you think of questions that are appropriate for this FAQ, or would
like to improve an answer, please send email to us at ai+li...@cs.cmu.edu.
CLOS/PCL Questions (Part 5):
[5-0] What is CLOS (PCL) and where can I get it?
How do you pronounce CLOS? What is the Meta-Object Protocol (MOP)?
[5-1] What documentation is available about object-oriented
programming in Lisp?
[5-2] How do I write a function that can access defstruct slots by
name? I would like to write something like
(STRUCTURE-SLOT <object> '<slot-name>).
[5-3] How can I list all the CLOS instances in a class?
[5-4] How can I store data and CLOS instances (with possibly circular
references) on disk so that they may be retrieved at some later
time? (Persistent Object Storage)
[5-5] Given the name of a class, how can I get the names of its slots?
[5-6] Free CLOS software.
[5-7] Common CLOS Blunders
Search for \[#\] to get to question number # quickly.
In general, questions about object oriented programming in Lisp,
especially questions about using CLOS or compiling PCL, should be
directed to the newsgroup comp.lang.clos.
The comp.lang.clos newsgroup is archived in
ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/news/comp.lang.clos/
on a weekly basis.
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Subject: [5-0] What is CLOS (PCL) and where can I get it?
How do you pronounce CLOS?
CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) is the object-oriented programming
standard for Common Lisp. It is the successor to Symbolics FLAVORS and
Xerox LOOPS (Lisp Object Oriented Programming System). The acronym
CLOS is pronouned either as "See-Loss" or "Closs" ("Claws"), depending
on taste. PCL (Portable Common Loops) is a portable CLOS
implementation, and is available by anonymous ftp from
parcftp.xerox.com:/pub/pcl/ [13.1.64.94]
Also in the same directory are sources for CLX R5 and an inspecter.
Most Common Lisp implementations now include their own CLOS
implementations. Common Lisp implementations with native CLOS include:
MCL, {A}KCL, Allegro CL (including Allegro CL\PC), Ibuki, Lucid,
Medley, Symbolics Genera, CLOE, and Harlequin LispWorks. CMU CL uses a
customized version of PCL as their CLOS. However, not all native CLOS
implementations have as detailed a meta-object protocol as PCL. For
example, MCL 2.0 users sometimes use the july-1d version of PCL
instead of the native CLOS for precisely this reason.
The book ``The Art of the Metaobject Protocol'' (see below) includes
the CLOS Metaobject Protocol specification as chapters 5 and 6. The
sources for the MOP spec itself are available from
parcftp.xerox.com:/pub/pcl/mop/ [13.1.64.94]
as the file spec.tar.Z, but this is no substitute for buying the
book, since the book contains a lot of useful explanatory material
beyond the spec. The Closette files related to the book are also
available from parcftp as the file closette.lisp.
The CLOS code repository is available by anonymous ftp to
nervous.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/lispusers/clos/ [128.146.61.200]
If you've got code you'd like to add to the repository, send mail to
Arun Welch, commonloo...@cis.ohio-state.edu.
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Subject: [5-1] What documentation is available about object-oriented
programming in Lisp?
Books about object-oriented programming in Lisp include:
1. dpANS CL describes the entire Common Lisp language, which includes the
CLOS standard. Informally, CLtL2 can also be used to learn about CLOS,
but please remember that CLtL2 is not an official X3J13 committee
document. (The presentation of CLtL2 differs from that of the draft
proposed standard, and some matters of fact have changed in the proposed
standard since the publication of CLtL2.)
2. Sonya E. Keene
"Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp:
A Programmer's Guide to CLOS"
Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1989. 266 pages. ISBN 0-201-17589-4.
Tutorial introduction to CLOS with many examples and
a lot of good advice for designing large programs using CLOS.
3. Jo A. Lawless and Molly M. Miller.
"Understanding CLOS: the Common Lisp Object System"
Digital Press, 1991. 192 pages.
4. Gregor Kiczales, Jim des Rivieres, and Daniel G. Bobrow.
"The Art of the Metaobject Protocol"
MIT Press, 1991. 335 pages. ISBN 0-262-61074-4, $34.95.
The first part of the book presents a model CLOS implementation,
introduces the basic principles of metaobject protocols, and
works through the key elements of the CLOS Metaobject Protocol.
The second half is the detailed specification of the CLOS
Metaobject Protocol. A simple working interpreter suitable
for experimentation is contained in an appendix.
5. Robert R. Kessler and Amy R. Petajan.
"LISP, Objects, and Symbolic Programming"
Scott, Foresman and Company (Glenview, IL), 1988. 644 pages.
Includes a small Lisp compiler.
6. A short introduction to CLOS written by Jeff Dalton of the
University of Edinburgh <J.Da...@ed.ac.uk> is available by
anonymous ftp from
ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk:/pub/packages/lisp/random/
as the file clos-guide.
7. Andreas Paepcke, editor.
"Object-Oriented Programming: The CLOS Perspective"
MIT Press, 1993. 400 pages, ISBN 0-262-16136-2 ($40).
This book is a collection of essays on the following topics:
- Description of CLOS and its design philosophy.
- The Metaobject Protocol and its use.
- Comparison of CLOS with Smalltalk, Eiffel, Sather, and C++.
- CLOS Uses and Methodology. Descriptions of two large CLOS
applications (Sun's LispView and a hybrid knowledge
representation tool) and an approach to documenting
object-oriented protocols (similar to that of AMOP).
- Implementation details. Descriptions of TI CLOS for the
Explorer and PCL's method dispatch mechanism.
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Subject: [5-2] How can I write a function that can access defstruct slots
by name? I would like to write something like
(STRUCTURE-SLOT <object> '<slot-name>).
There is currently no portable, built-in way to access structure slots
given only the name. If your Common Lisp includes an implementation
of CLOS that supports the meta-object protocol specified in the
original X3J13 draft spec (document X3J13/88-003), then it probably will
allow (SLOT-VALUE <object> '<slot-name>); however, not all
implementations of CLOS currently provide this. Lacking this, some
implementations may provide implementation-dependent functions that
allow access to structure slots by name; note that this may cause
saved images to be larger, as some implementations normally open-code
structure accessors and discard slot name information.
While it is not possible to write a fully general STRUCTURE-SLOT function,
it is not very difficult to write version that handles specific structure
types. For instance, after defining:
(defstruct spaceship name captain position velocity)
one may then define:
(defun spaceship-slot (spaceship slot-name)
(ecase slot-name
(name (spaceship-name spaceship))
(captain (spaceship-captain spaceship))
(position (spaceship-position spaceship))
(velocity (spaceship-velocity spaceship))))
or using CLOS (generic functions):
(defgeneric spaceship-slot (spaceship slot-name)
(:method ((x spaceship) (slot (eql :name)))
(spaceship-name x))
(:method ((x spaceship) (slot (eql :captain)))
(spaceship-captain x))
(:method ((x spaceship) (slot (eql :position)))
(spaceship-position x))
(:method ((x spaceship) (slot (eql :velocity)))
(spaceship-velocity x)))
Another popular way to define this is:
(defun spaceship-slot (spaceship slot-name)
(funcall (symbol-function
(find-symbol (format nil "SPACESHIP-~A" slot-name)
#.(package-name *package*)))
spaceship))
I personally recommend the first version. It is likely to be much faster
and more memory efficient than the second version. It's also easy to get
the second one wrong; many people forget to specify the package argument to
FIND-SYMBOL, which can cause incorrect results when the package at run time
is different from the one at compile time. Even my version assumes that
SPACESHIP-SLOT is being defined in a file that is in the same package as
the one containing the structure definition; if this isn't the case,
#.(PACKAGE-NAME *PACKAGE*) should be replaced by a string naming the
correct package.
Another workaround is to define a MY-DEFSTRUCT macro that parses the
defstruct arguments and expands into a call to DEFSTRUCT along with a
definition of the runtime slot-accessor function.
Some non-portable techniques include the use of SYSTEM:STRUCTURE-REF
in Lucid (LCL:STRUCTURE-REF in earlier versions of Lucid) and
EXCL:STRUCTURE-REF in Allegro.
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Subject: [5-3] How can I list all the CLOS instances in a class?
There is no built-in way to enumerate the instances of a class. If you are
only interested in listing the instances of classes that you have defined,
it is not very difficult to implement it as part of your class definition.
Add a shared slot, e.g. ALL-INSTANCES, with an initial value of NIL, to the
class definition. Then write an after-method on INITIALIZE-INSTANCE for
this class, which pushes the instance being initialized onto ALL-INSTANCES.
Note that this must be done separately for each class that wants to maintain
such a list; it can't be encapsulated in a mixin class, because all its
dependent classes would share the same ALL-INSTANCES slot. A compromise
would be to use a mixin to define the INITIALIZE-INSTANCE after-method (and
any other general-purpose methods that use the slot), but not the shared
slot; it would be up to the descendant classes to define the slot at the
level of the class hierarchy that is appropriate. You could also try
defining the classes that need instance-recording as instances of a
metaclass that holds the instance registry on the class object. The
recording behavior could then be built-in to an after method on
initialize-instance for the root class of the metaclass, or even
allocate-instance. To allow for garbage collection of old instances,
you will also need to define a generic function to remove the recorded
instances from the list of instances.
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Subject: [5-4] How can I store data and CLOS instances (with possibly
circular references) on disk so that they may be
retrieved at some later time? (Persistent Object Storage)
There are two approaches to CLOS object persistence. The first uses
regular CLOS facilities in concert with a standard file system. The
second uses a more sophisticated storage facility, such as a database.
The first solution provides just the persistence, and usually cannot
retrieve only some of the objects from disc. The second goes beyond this
by providing some or all of the facilities typically associated with
databases: transaction management, concurrency control, queries,
selective object materialization, etc. Below, the two solutions are
addressed in turn.
There are two main techniques for the file system solution. The first
involves using #. to compile the data into a file. The second
produces an ASCII representation which, when evaluated, will reproduce
an equivalent set of data.
If the data you wish to save is stored in the variable *hash-table*,
create a file containing just the lines
(in-package "YOUR-PACKAGE")
(setq *hash-table* '#.*hash-table*)
and compile it. The #. macro performs read-time evaluation of the
expression following the dot, and so this compiles the data into the
file. You may then load the file to restore the data. However, the
resulting binary file is not portable between Lisp implementations,
and sometimes not even for the same Lisp on different platforms. Also,
some Lisps will treat the data as constant, and place it on pages in
memory that are marked read-only (after it is loaded). If one tries to
later modify the data, these Lisps will signal an error. Lucid CL only
puts such constants in a read-only area when they appear inside
functions, so this should be safe. Allegro CL doesn't seem to complain
about modification if the data is a cons. DEC's VAXLisp, however, has
problems with #. circular structures in .fas files. MCL seems to work
well with using #. to save data (and even functions) to a file.
The other technique is to produce an ASCII representation of the Lisp
objects which may then be saved to a file. To reproduce the data, one
can load (or compile and load) the file. This technique is portable
between different Lisps and platforms. Unfortunately, the resulting
data is not necessarily EQ to the original. Kerry Koitzsch's
save-object.lisp package is included in the Lisp Utilities Repository,
ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/lang/lisp/code/ext/save_obj/
The Lisp Utilities Repository is described in detail in the answer to
question [6-1].
See also the discussion of MAKE-LOAD-FORM and MAKE-LOAD-FORM-SAVING-SLOTS
in CLtL2.
Here are some solutions to object persistence that use databases instead
of file systems.
Free Persistent Object Storage systems include:
WOOD (William's Object Oriented Database) is a simple persistent
object store for MCL 2.0.x & MCL 3.0, written by Bill St. Clair
<bi...@cambridge.apple.com>. Its goal is to provide a way to
save/restore Lisp objects to/from disk. It is available by anonymous
ftp from from ftp://ftp.digitool.com:/pub/mcl2/contrib/wood/.
Send bug reports to bug-...@cambridge.apple.com. To be added to the
mailing list, send mail to info-woo...@cambridge.apple.com.
PCLOS is a persistent object store for CLOS that was implemented using
CLOS's metaobject protocol. It allowed multiple different storage
facilities to be used. The benefit of this approach is it lets you use
different storage facilities depending on your needs, ranging from a
full-blown database with concurrency control and recovery to a very
fast store that trades speed for functionality. For example, an
in-memory store that saves its state to disk periodically can be much
faster than traditional databases, but risks loss of data due to
crashes. Unfortunately, PCLOS was built on a very old version of CLOS,
so it is unusable in its current form, and there are no plans to
update it. The introductory MOP chapter in the book "Object-Oriented
Programming: The CLOS Perspective" (see [5-1] above) explains how to
do the rewrite in principle and shows how the CLOS MOP was used for
object persistence in PCLOS. See also
1. Andreas Paepcke, "PCLOS: A Flexible Implementation of CLOS
Persistence", in Proceedings of ECOOP-88, S. Gjessing and K.
Nygaard, editors, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer
Verlag, pages 374-389, 1988. [Explains the PCLOS architecture.]
2. Andreas Paepcke, "PCLOS: A Critical Review", in OOPSLA-89, 1989.
[Uses PCLOS as a roadmap through the issues of object persistence.]
3. Andreas Paepcke, "PCLOS Reference Manual", Hewlett-Packard
Laboratories, December, 1991.
For more information about PCLOS, write to Andreas Paepcke
<pae...@parc.xerox.com>.
GBB (see [6-3]) is a blackboard architecture with persistence of a
sort. Every object in GBB is held in RAM, and there are dump and
restore functions. It handles distributed object delivery and
function-call triggering of receiving processes.
Commercial Persistent Object Storage systems include:
AllegroStore is a high-performance object-oriented database management
system from Franz. It offers Allegro CL users persistent object
storage with very fast retrieval and update of object data. It
provides query processing and transaction-based operation. Built on a
multi-client, multi-server architecture, it permits concurrent access
over a network to objects by multiple independent processes. It uses
the ObjectStore ODBMS from Object Design Inc, and thus has both Lisp
and C interfaces and is also very fast. The CLOS interface is based
on MOP, with dynamic class/schema modification and redefinition.
AllegroStore can handle large-scale applications with minimal impact
on performance. It uses page-faulting and page-locking mechanisms
instead of object locking, providing high throughput and low overhead
for concurrent access by multiple users. Standard database features
include deadlock detection, referential integrity, and inverse
functions. Exception handling is integrated into the Lisp condition
system. AllegroStore runs on Sparc, SGI, HP, RS/6000, and
MS-Windows/NT systems. For more information, send email to
in...@franz.com, write to Franz Inc., 1995 University Avenue, Berkeley,
CA 94704, call 1-800-333-7260, 510-548-3600, fax 510-548-8253, or
telex 340179 WUPUBTLXSFO.
ITASCA ODBMS V2.2 is a distributed active object database management
system. ITASCA allows clients to transparently access data that is
distributed among multiple servers. ITASCA supports full dynamic
schema modification that can be performed during any phase of the
software lifecycle. Applications written in dissimilar and
incompatible languages, such as C/C++ and CLOS, can share objects through
ITASCA. ITASCA stores methods inside the database, promoting
reusability and maintainability. ITASCA is based on work at MCC's
Object-Oriented and Distributed Systems Lab on the ORION system. For
more information, write to Itasca Systems, Inc., 7850 Metro Parkway,
Minneapolis, MN 55425, sa...@itasca.com, 612-832-0409, fax 612-851-3157.
[Clint Hyde has written a MOP CLOS interface to Itasca, which has some
features not present in their interface. For a free copy of his source
code, send him mail to ch...@bbn.com.]
LispWorks (from Harlequin), in addition to providing a traditional
SQL-based interface to relational databases, also provides a CLOS/SQL
interface, which is an object-oriented access layer that enables SQL
data to be manipulated as objects within Lisp, even though those objects
are not manifest in the database. This can be especially useful when
importing data from and exporting data to a database provided by another
(usually non-Lisp-based) application that already uses a relational
database to achieve data persistence.
Statice is a commercial product from Symbolics, that provides a
powerful persistent ODBMS. It runs on Symbolics Lisp Machines.
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Subject: [5-5] Given the name of a class, how can I get the names
of its slots?
(defun class-slot-names (class-name)
"Given a CLASS-NAME, returns a list of the slots in the class."
(mapcar #'clos:slot-definition-name
(clos:class-slots (find-class class-name))))
(defmethod class-slot-names ((instance standard-object))
"Given an INSTANCE, returns a list of the slots in the instance's class."
(mapcar #'clos:slot-definition-name
(clos:class-slots (class-of instance))))
You can use CLASS-DIRECT-SLOTS instead of CLASS-SLOTS if you don't
want inherited slots. Note that these functions are from the
meta-object protocol specified in the original X3J13 draft spec
(document X3J13/88-003), and may not be supported by all Lisps.
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Subject: [5-6] Free CLOS software.
Software Repositories:
The CLOS code repository is available by anonymous ftp to
nervous.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/lispusers/clos/ [128.146.61.200]
If you've got code you'd like to add to the repository, send
mail to Arun Welch, commonloo...@cis.ohio-state.edu.
The CLOS code repository includes dag.lisp.Z and 3DGeometry.lisp.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [5-7] Common CLOS Blunders
This question is based on a document written by Marty Hall
<ha...@aplcenmp.apl.jhu.edu>. The full text of Marty's
"Introduction to CLOS" handout is available by anonymous ftp from
ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/lang/lisp/doc/intro/closintr.tgz
This question lists a variety of common errors that occur when writing
CLOS code. It is extremely useful to glance through this list when
debugging CLOS code.
[A] Omitting a set of parentheses around the arglist in DEFMETHOD.
For example, writing
(defmethod Area (Sq Square) ...)
instead of
(defmethod Area ((Sq Square)) ...)
Lisp will accept the former, and think that you have two
unspecialized arguments instead of one argument specialized as a
Square.
[B] Missing parentheses around the slot definition list in DEFCLASS.
For example, writing
(defclass Rectangle (Polygon)
(Width ...)
(Height ...))
instead of
(defclass Rectangle (Polygon)
((Width ...)
(Height ...)))
Lisp will not accept the former, but the error message doesn't
always clearly identify the problem.
[C] Forgetting to include an empty slot definition list if you don't
define local slots in DEFCLASS.
For example, writing
(defclass Square (Rectangle))
instead of
(defclass Square (Rectangle) ())
Lisp will not accept the former.
[D] Referring to the class name instead of the instance variable in
DEFMETHOD.
For example, writing
(defmethod Area ((Sq Square))
(* (Width Square) (Width Square)))
instead of
(defmethod Area ((Sq Square))
(* (Width Sq) (Width Sq)))
Lisp may give you a warning about an unknown free variable, but
probably won't even do that if you type the defmethod directly into
the Lisp Listener (Lucid doesn't). So you might not encounter a
problem until run-time.
[E] Forgetting that accessors are functions and thus could conflict
with built-in function names.
For example, writing
(defclass Graphical-Object ()
((Position :accessor Position)))
will signal an error, since you cannot redefine the built-in
POSITION function.
[F] Putting the new value last instead of first in the definition of a
SETF method.
For example, writing
(defmethod (setf Area) ((Sq Square) (New-Area number))
(setf (Width Sq) (sqrt New-Area)))
instead of
(defmethod (setf Area) ((New-Area number) (Sq Square))
(setf (Width Sq) (sqrt New-Area)))
Lisp will accept the former, causing users to be later puzzled as
to why (setf (Area Square-1) 10) doesn't work.
[G] Putting the new value last instead of first in a call to a :writer
method.
For example, given
(defclass Circle ()
((Radius :reader Radius :writer Set-Radius :initform 5)))
(setq Circle-1 (make-instance 'Circle))
and writing
(Set-Radius Circle-1 10)
instead of
(Set-Radius 10 Circle-1)
[H] Confusion about documentation strings in DEFMETHOD.
People often write code like
(defmethod Area ((Rect Rectangle))
"WIDTH times HEIGHT of the rectangle"
(* (Width Rect) (Height Rect)))
without clearly thinking about what this might mean. Some people
think it will make a documentation string on the generic function that
can be retrieved by calling (DOCUMENTATION 'Area 'function) or the
equivalent emacs keystrokes. Others vaguely expect it to make a doc
string on each separate method, and that the call to DOCUMENTATION
will somehow be able to automagically figure out which method it
applies to.
In fact, Lisp won't complain about this code, with the result that the
documentation is added to the method *object*, which beginners
probably know nothing about.
Use the :documentation entry in defgeneric to add a documentation
string to the generic function.
[I] Invalid :initargs are accepted by MAKE-INSTANCE.
Many Lisp implementations will accept unknown keyword initargs without
complaint, even at the highest safety settings.
So the following code, which includes a typo of :SLOT1 instead of
:SLOT-1 in the call to make-instance
(defclass Foo ()
((Slot-1 :accessor Slot-1 :initarg :Slot-1 :initform 5)))
(setq Test (make-instance 'Foo :Slot1 10))
will not produce an error message, with the result that
(Slot-1 Test) returns 5, not 10.
This is a bug in the implementation; all implementations are
supposed to flag this as an error.
[J] Forgetting the class must exist before any method can specialize upon it.
Lisp programmers are used to being able to define functions in any
order, where even if FOO calls BAR, FOO can be defined first. But doing
(defmethod Area ((Rect Rectangle)) ...)
(defclass Rectangle (Polygon) ...)
is illegal. You have to define the class first.
If while trying to debug the problem, you define the class by
evaluating the definition without reordering the code to put the
class first, you'll only run into problems later the next time you
try to recompile the code from scratch.
Many experienced programmers put each class definition in its own
file at the top of the file, with methods for that class after it
in the file. Others opt to put all the class definitions for a
program in a single file that is loaded first, with methods in files
that are loaded later.
[K] Changing a method to apply to a more general class does not
supersede previous method.
For example, suppose a user writes
(defmethod Half-Area ((Rect Filled-Rectangle))
(/ (Area Rect) 2))
and then notices that this functionality could apply to all
Rectangles, not just Filled-Rectangles. They might then change the
class referenced in this method, under the specious intuition that by
changing the old defintion, they are replacing it. In fact, they are
actually adding a new, less-specific method.
Now suppose that later on, they change this new method (in this
example, by adding a call to FLOAT to avoid returning a ratio),
(defmethod Half-Area ((Rect Rectangle))
(float (/ (Area Rect) 2)))
If they test it on an instance of Filled-Rectangle, they will be
puzzled as to why their new definition appears to have not taken
effect. But because the old definition specialized to Filled-Rectangle
still exists, they're actually getting the old, more-specific definition.
Moreover, the next time they restart a fresh Lisp and recompile
the code, the problem will magicly disappear, since the old
definition is no longer in the code.
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;;; *EOF*