print-startup-info

Generic Function

Package: excl

Arguments: type &optional brief

This generic function is used to print information useful to users during the start-up of the Lisp image.

type specifies what information is printed. Its value can be one of the keywords given below (meaning print information on that specific topic), or nil (meaning print nothing), or any true value other than one of the keyword below (meaning print the information specified by the variable *print-startup-message*.

The keywords identifying information are:

:compiler-optimization
:compiler-switches
:compiler-explain
:case-mode
:source-file-recording
:xref

brief is a boolean (default t) that indicates whether the message printed should be short (value t) or long (value nil). Note that some of the brief messages are empty.

Applications can augment what is seen during Lisp start-up by defining their own eql specialized methods on this generic function and pushing the appropriate information onto the list bound to *print-startup-message*.

Despite its name, this function can be called at any time. Its message contains information about the current state of the Lisp image. Thus, for example, evaluating the following form:

(excl:print-startup-info :compiler-switches nil)

will print the values of the compiler switches for the current values of speed, safety, space, and debug (see Declarations and optimizations in compiling.htm).

And evaluating:

(excl:print-startup-info :case-mode)

will print the complete information on the the current case mode.

The documentation is described in introduction.htm and the index is in index.htm.

Created 2000.10.5.