Question 1

How do I install usocket in Common Lisp?

Accepted Answer

Usocket is ASDF-enabled, so you can install it via Quicklisp or load it directly with ASDF by adding it to your system definition. It's designed for easy integration with Common Lisp's build system.

Question 2

How to handle character encoding with usocket?

Accepted Answer

Usocket doesn't support external-format directly. You need to wrap usocket streams with a library like flexi-streams to handle encodings and newline translation portably.

Question 3

Usocket or iolib for Common Lisp networking?

Accepted Answer

Usocket is better for maximum portability across many Lisp implementations, while iolib might offer more features but with less broad support. Choose usocket if cross-platform consistency is your priority.

Question 4

How to set up the usocket test suite?

Accepted Answer

You must manually edit the test file to configure variables like +non-existing-host+ and +unused-local-port+ based on your network environment, as the suite isn't self-configuring.

Question 5

Does usocket support non-blocking I/O?

Accepted Answer

Usocket focuses on a minimal, portable API and may not expose advanced features like non-blocking I/O directly; check the documentation or use implementation-specific extensions if needed.

Question 6

What are the performance implications of using usocket?

Accepted Answer

The abstraction layer adds minimal overhead, but for performance-critical applications on a single Lisp implementation, native socket APIs might offer optimizations. However, the portability benefit often outweighs this.

usocket

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