REPL for Emacs Lisp

Question

What are some REPLs for Emacs Lisp?

Is there only one that is within Emacs?

Are there some that run inside terminal outside Emacs?

Winebaum

Answer 1

Based on this question: REPL on console emacs, you can use M-x ielm (inferior emacs lisp mode).

Waldheim

Thanks! Must that run within emacs, or can it run in bash outside emacs? I tried ieml or ielm in bash, but it doesn't work. – Winebaum

I don't think it can be run outside of Emacs, but I could be wrong. – Waldheim

'ielm' is a lisp program. It runs only inside emacs. If you want to try things in a terminal, you can use `emacs --batch – Albacore

The term "REPL" stands for "read-eval-print-loop" which originally comes from Lisp, which literally has functions named read, eval, and print. Emacs Lisp is no different, so you can do emacs --batch --eval '(while t (print (eval (read))))' to get what you want. – Albacore

I tend to forget its name, so I made an "alias" for it: (defun repl() (interactive) (ielm)). Then you can launch the interpreter with M-x repl. – Smalltime

@Smalltime You can also say: (defalias 'repl 'ielm) – Littlest

Answer 2

There is a (work in progress) REPL for Emacs for use from the command line. It currently supports basic command line editing and history.

The code is hosted on Github.

Becky

Answer 3

There is this project on Gitlab. The REPL can run on a termninal or on Emacs' minibuffer. Even if you run it in "no-window-system" mode (with -nw).

Fulton

Answer 4

One can also just run eshell

M-x eshell

example

~/.emacs.d/org $ (directory-files "." nil ".org") 
("#x1.org#" "#x2.org#" ".#x3.org" ...

Weeper