[Larceny-users] Use Larceny with Eclipse

Tue Jan 29 06:33:42 EST 2013

Siyuan-

You should start by making sure you can run Larceny at the command
line with your setup.  The way you have described it, I suspect you do
not have the LARCENY_ROOT set correctly in your copy of the script.

Only after confirming that you can run Larceny in the Terminal.app
should you attempt to configure it with Eclipse+Schemeway.

The installation documentation in doc/HOWTO-INSTALL [1] describes how
to set the LARCENY_ROOT.  In particular, the LARCENY_ROOT needs to
point to the directory containing the full Larceny distribution (which
holds the various .heap files as well as library files that are loaded
on demand).

In my case, I have a copy of the larceny distribution here:

  /usr/local/lib/larceny/larceny-0.97-bin-native-ia32-macosx/

I could run the larceny script directly from that directory (the
script in its pristine state will assume that it is invoked from the
LARCENY_ROOT), but since that directory is not on my PATH, I instead
usually run a different copy of the script that I have installed
elsewhere, such as my ~/bin/ directory.  In your case, you can put a
copy of the script in /usr/local/bin, as it sounds like you have done,
but you need to set its LARCENY_ROOT so that it points to a full
distribution of larceny (which means that "/usr/local/bin" is not an
appropriate LARCENY_ROOT, and neither is "/usr/local/lib" probably).

The different copy of the script needs to be explicitly told what the
LARCENY_ROOT is, e.g. via a line at the top like:

  LARCENY_ROOT=/usr/local/lib/larceny/larceny-0.97-bin-native-ia32-macosx

(The script already includes a line much like this, commented out,
within the first ten lines.  So just make a copy of the script and
edit that line to point to the correct directory, depending on what
you have named that directory.)

Once you have done this, you should be able to run Larceny like so in
Terminal.app:

  % /usr/local/bin/larceny
  Larceny v0.97 "Funny in the Head" (Aug 19 2009 04:24:46,
precise:Posix:unified)
  larceny.heap, built on Wed Aug 19 04:26:48 EDT 2009

  > (exit)
  %

----

[The remaining text is probably mostly of interest to people who want
to know more about the schemeway plugin itself; I suspect Siyuan does
not need the information below.]

Once you are able to run Larceny itself, then you just need to install
and configure the schemeway plugin.

For me, after installing the schemeway plugin to the Eclipse dropins
[2], I was able to just point schemeway to the absolute path for same
larceny script that I would run from the command line in Terminal.app.
 I didn't bother changing the working directory setting; Larceny
should be able to run regardless of working directory (as long as the
LARCENY_ROOT has been set by the environment or startup script).

The hardest part for me was figuring out how to use Schemeway itself
to test my setup [3].

Once I did all that, the basics like loading a file and evaluating en
expression [4] seemed to work.

Cheers,
-Felix

[1] The HOWTO-INSTALL is included in the Larceny distribution; the
current version can be seen here:
  https://trac.ccs.neu.edu/trac/larceny/browser/trunk/larceny_src/doc/HOWTO-INSTALL

[2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/926594/installing-a-plain-plugin-jar-in-eclipse-3-5

[3]   (I am not an Eclipse expert.)  I did find the notes here helpful:
  http://esaliya.blogspot.fr/2009/09/scheme-way-eclipse-plug-in.html
In particular, the instruction: "Window --> Open Perspective --> Other
--> Scheme" was crucial for me.

[4] To evaluate an expression in your buffer on its own, see "Eval" in
the right-mouse-click menu (or just type Ctrl-Enter).

On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 11:37 PM, Siyuan Ren <siyuan.ren at yale.edu> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am new to the Scheme Language and have just started using it for my
> college's Intro to CompSci class. As I am not familiar with Emacs, I decided
> to use Eclipse as an IDE. (I learned Java in high school.) I found out this
> brilliant eclipse plugin that establishes a Scheme working environment. The
> question now is to configure the command line and the working directory,
> something I just can't figure out by reading the Larceny manual and
> googling. Can somebody help me with this?
>
> I am on Mac OS X 10.8 and have installed Larceny to /usr/local/bin and
> /usr/local/lib and set LARCENY_ROOT to /usr/local/bin.
>
> Your help would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Siyuan
>
> _______________________________________________
> Larceny-users mailing list
> Larceny-users at lists.ccs.neu.edu
> https://lists.ccs.neu.edu/bin/listinfo/larceny-users
>