How to change SBCL's current directory?

Question

It is very easy to change CLisp's current working directory:

>cat ~/.clisprc.lisp 
;;; The following lines added by ql:add-to-init-file:
#-quicklisp
(let ((quicklisp-init (merge-pathnames "quicklisp/setup.lisp" (user-homedir-pathname))))
  (when (probe-file quicklisp-init)
  (load quicklisp-init)))

(cd "/media/E/www/qachina/db/doc/money")
(load "money")

However, it seems there is no cd similar function in SBCL. How can this be done with SBCL?

Dover

Answer 1

CL-USER> (sb-posix:chdir "/home/apugachev")
0
CL-USER> (sb-posix:getcwd)
"/home/apugachev"
CL-USER> (sb-posix:chdir "/tmp/")
0
CL-USER> (sb-posix:getcwd)
"/tmp"

Syllabary

This doesn't seem to change the directory that sbcl looks in when you call (load ...). – Testes

@Testes I think that observation is worth its own top-level question. It's puzzling behavior and I don't know the answer, either (I just work around it by using full path names all the time). – Bouldon

you could just do (load (concatenate 'string (sb-posix:getcwd) "/" "my-foo.lisp")). Pretty clumsy, I know, but a little less brittle. – Bouldon

Answer 2

(setf *default-pathname-defaults* #P"/New/Absolute/Path/")

Premier

Answer 3

Right now, better answer is: use (uiop:chdir "some/path").

Or you can use this function to change directory temporarily:

(uiop:call-with-current-directory "some/path" (lambda () (do-the-job))

Or this macro for more convenient way:

(uiop:with-current-directory ("some/path") (do-the-job))

Cadaver

Note: uiop package is available in most CL implementations directly. No need to load using asdf / quicklisp. The above code will run directly. – Advice

I'm using SBCL 2.0.0 in Windows and had to (require "asdf") to use uiop. It's the case that nothing had to be installed – Assize

Answer 4

Had the same question. Turns out

(setf *default-pathname-defaults* (truename "./subdir"))

changes load path to subdir. If you don't want relative path, then

(setf *default-pathname-defaults* (truename "/absolute/path"))

Uncut

Answer 5

Now i use rlwrap to run SBCL and solves this problem

$"cat ~/bin/sb"
breakchars="(){}[],^%$#@\"\";:''|\\"

cd /media/E/www/qachina/db/doc/money/
exec rlwrap --remember -c -b "$breakchars"  -f "$HOME"/.sbcl_completions sbcl "$@"

then run sb.

Dover

Is it simpler than use of chdir? – Syllabary