common-lisp Getting started with common-lisp Hello, Name

Example

This is a slightly more advanced example that shows a few more features of common lisp. We start with a simple Hello, World! function and demonstrate some interactive development at the REPL. Note that any text from a semicolon, ;, to the rest of the line is a comment.

CL-USER> (defun hello ()
       (format t "Hello, World!~%")) ;We start as before
HELLO
CL-USER> (hello)
Hello, World!
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-name (name) ;A function to say hello to anyone
       (format t "Hello, ~a~%" name)) ;~a prints the next argument to format
HELLO-NAME
CL-USER> (hello-name "Jack")
Hello, Jack
NIL
CL-USER> (hello-name "jack") ;doesn't capitalise names
Hello, jack
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-name (name) ;format has a feature to convert to title case
       (format t "Hello, ~:(~a~)~%" name)) ;anything between ~:( and ~) gets it
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO-NAME in DEFUN
HELLO-NAME
CL-USER> (hello-name "jack")
Hello, Jack
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-name (name)
       (format t "Hello, ~:(~a~)!~%" name))
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO-NAME in DEFUN
HELLO-NAME
CL-USER> (hello-name "jack") ;now this works
Hello, Jack!
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello (&optional (name "world")) ;we can take an optional argument
       (hello-name name)) ;name defaults to "world"
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO in DEFUN
HELLO
CL-USER> (hello)
Hello, World!
NIL
CL-USER> (hello "jack")
Hello, Jack!
NIL
CL-USER> (hello "john doe") ;note that this capitalises both names
Hello, John Doe!
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-person (name &key (number))
       (format t "Hello, ~a ~r" name number)) ;~r prints a number in English
HELLO-PERSON
CL-USER> (hello-person "Louis" :number 16) ;this doesn't quite work
Hello, Louis sixteen
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-person (name &key (number))
       (format t "Hello, ~:(~a ~:r~)!" name number)) ;~:r prints an ordinal
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO-PERSON in DEFUN
HELLO-PERSON
CL-USER> (hello-person "Louis" :number 16)
Hello, Louis Sixteenth!
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-person (name &key (number))
       (format t "Hello, ~:(~a ~@r~)!" name number)) ;~@r prints Roman numerals
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO-PERSON in DEFUN
HELLO-PERSON
CL-USER> (hello-person "Louis" :number 16)
Hello, Louis Xvi!
NIL
CL-USER> (defun hello-person (name &key (number)) ;capitalisation was wrong
       (format t "Hello, ~:(~a~) ~:@r!" name number))
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO-PERSON in DEFUN
HELLO-PERSON
CL-USER> (hello-person "Louis" :number 16) ;thats better
Hello, Louis XVI!
NIL
CL-USER> (hello-person "Louis") ;we get an error because NIL is not a number
Hello, Louis ; Evaluation aborted on #<SB-FORMAT:FORMAT-ERROR {1006641AB3}>.
CL-USER> (defun say-person (name &key (number 1 number-p)
                                      (title nil) (roman-number t))
       (let ((number (if number-p
                 (typecase number
                   (integer
                (format nil (if roman-number " ~:@r" " ~:(~:r~)") number))
                   (otherwise
                (format nil " ~:(~a~)" number)))
                 "")) ; here we define a variable called number
         (title (if title 
                (format nil "~:(~a~) " title)
                ""))) ; and here one called title
         (format nil "~a~:(~a~)~a" title name number))) ;we use them here

SAY-PERSON
CL-USER> (say-person "John") ;some examples
"John"
CL-USER> (say-person "john doe")
"John Doe"
CL-USER> (say-person "john doe" :number "JR")
"John Doe Jr"
CL-USER> (say-person "john doe" :number "Junior")
"John Doe Junior"
CL-USER> (say-person "john doe" :number 1)
"John Doe I"
CL-USER> (say-person "john doe" :number 1 :roman-number nil) ;this is wrong
"John Doe First"
CL-USER> (defun say-person (name &key (number 1 number-p)
                                      (title nil) (roman-number t))
       (let ((number (if number-p
                 (typecase number
                   (integer
                (format nil (if roman-number " ~:@r" " the ~:(~:r~)") number))
                   (otherwise
                (format nil " ~:(~a~)" number)))
                 ""))
         (title (if title 
                (format nil "~:(~a~) " title)
                "")))
         (format nil "~a~:(~a~)~a" title name number)))
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::SAY-PERSON in DEFUN
SAY-PERSON
CL-USER> (say-person "john doe" :number 1 :roman-number nil) ;thats better
"John Doe the First"
CL-USER> (say-person "louis" :title "king" :number 16 :roman-number nil)
"King Louis the Sixteenth"
CL-USER> (say-person "louis" :title "king" :number 16 :roman-number t)
"King Louis XVI"
CL-USER> (defun hello (&optional (name "World") &rest arguments) ;now we will just
       (apply #'hello-name name arguments)) ;pass all arguments to hello-name
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO in DEFUN
HELLO
CL-USER> (defun hello-name (name &rest arguments) ;which will now just use
       (format t "Hello, ~a!" (apply #'say-person name arguments))) ;say-person
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::HELLO-NAME in DEFUN
HELLO-NAME
CL-USER> (hello "louis" :title "king" :number 16) ;this works now
Hello, King Louis XVI!
NIL
CL-USER>

This highlights some of the advanced features of Common Lisp's format function as well as some features like optional parameters and keyword arguments (e.g. :number). This also gives an example of interactive development at a REPL in common lisp.