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18.3.1 The Current Slave

There is a slave-information structure that these return which is suitable for passing to the routines described in the following subsections.

Function: create-slave &optional name ¶

This creates a slave that tries to connect to the editor. When the slave connects to the editor, this returns a slave-information structure, and the interactive buffer is the buffer named name. This generates a name if name is nil. In case the slave never connects, this will eventually timeout and signal an editor-error.

Hemlock Variable: Current Eval Server ¶

Function: get-current-eval-server &optional errorp ¶

This returns the server-information for the Current Eval Server after making sure it is valid. Of course, a slave Lisp can die at anytime. If this variable is nil, and errorp is non-nil, then this signals an editor-error; otherwise, it tries to make a new slave. If there is no current eval server, then this tries to make a new slave, prompting the user based on a few variables (see the Hemlock User’s Manual).

Hemlock Variable: Current Compile Server ¶

Function: get-current-compile-server ¶

This returns the server-information for the Current Compile Server after making sure it is valid. This may return nil. Since multiple slaves may exist, it is convenient to use one for developing code and one for compiling files. The compilation commands that use slave Lisps prefer to use the current compile server but will fall back on the current eval server when necessary. Typically, users only have separate compile servers when the slave Lisp can live on a separate workstation to save cycles on the editor machine, and the Hemlock commands only use this for compiling files.