Clojure emacs slime + swank directory question

Asked 26/12, 2009 at 14:49 Answered 1/1, 2010 at 17:57

Solved clojure read-eval-print-loop slime swank

I'm using emacs with clojure-swank and slime and trying to set my development environment. And I ran into a problem. When I start a repl I'm stuck in an unknown directory preventing me to load my namespace. Because the clojure repl can't find the right file.

Does anyone know how to change the current directory?

PS: I've just started using emacs and slime so I'm a noob.

Untrimmed answered 26/12, 2009 at 14:49 Comment(0)

If you want to change slime's notion of the current directory, press ,cd<CR> (<CR> = Enter) and type in the path.

However, this is not really the proper solution to the problem. The proper solution involves setting up the classpath so that you can (use 'your.namespace). To this end, I wonder if this very long answer I provided to a question about setting up the classpath properly might be helpful... :-)

Incidentally, I somewhat object to solutions involving add-classpath, as that is currently marked as deprecated and was never meant to be relied upon in the first place... Though on the other hand, it certainly may work perfectly well and it's worth knowing about just in case it might come in handy as a quick-and-dirty classpath injection gimmick.

Now if you want a real nice SLIME-based development environment, I'd like to point you to a very nice clojure-project elisp function by Phil Hagelberg which sets up all relevant variables and launches SLIME in the main directory of a project (to be supplied interactively). It's been posted to the Clojure group, in fact here's a link to the Mail Archive's copy of that message. Note there's one thing which needs correction in there -- swank-clojure-jar-path ought to be set to the full path to clojure.jar. Otherwise it's a fantastic tool.

Actually I mentioned that function in this response to a question about managing the classpath when using Clojure and Emacs. The other answers might be interesting as well.

And if you're only just beginning to use SLIME, do watch the SLIME video, ~~linked to from SLIME's homepage~~ which is now available under a link posted by Michiel in the comments. It's a very good introduction. :-)

Incubation answered 26/12, 2009 at 18:2 Comment(3)

I'm going to try the clojure-project function solution. But in which file do I add the code? – Untrimmed 26/12, 2009 at 21:3

The link to the video from the SLIME homepage is dead. The video still can be found here: guba.com/watch/3000054867 – Tiptoe 27/12, 2009 at 0:9

Oh, I never noticed... Thanks, Michiel. I'll edit accordingly. @MrHus: You need to add it to some file which gets loaded when you start Emacs, like ~/.emacs (on *nix) / _emacs (on Windows; I believe you put this in your profile's directory, e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\_emacs, but I'm entirely sure, google around if this won't work). Just remember to fix swank-clojure-jar-path. Incidentally, judging by your asking this question, you might do well to look up Phil Hagelberg's emacs-starter-kit; there's also a related screencast on peepcode.com. – Saker 27/12, 2009 at 0:54

Leiningen is a new Clojure build tool that worries about classpathing for you. You set up a simple project file in the project's root directory to specify the main class of your project, and it automagically discovers all the JARs in your lib directory and loads them for you.

I now just type "lein swank" at a command line and then M-x slime-connect in Emacs, and everything just works. (This could easily be automated with a little Elisp.)

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