running scheme from emacs

Question

I'm a newbie to LISP.

I am attempting to invoke the scheme interpreter from within emacs (version 23 running on windows). I loaded the xscheme library by telling emacs to M-x load-library and then entering xscheme at the prompt in the minibuffer. The library loaded, and then I issued the M-x run-scheme command. (I realize that all this loading can be done from .emacs at startup, but I am not concerned with that at the moment.)

So far so good - the *scheme* buffer has been created, and now I'm hoping that I'm able to talk to the scheme interpreter.

However, when I try to evaluate something in that *scheme*buffer (e.g. (define shoe-size 14)), I get this Output file descriptor of scheme is closed message in the minibuffer.

Does anybody know how to fix this in emacs?

(Also, how does one set the major-mode as REPL in the *scheme* buffer?)

Thank you.

Answer 1

Try setting the scheme-program-name variable to the path to your Scheme interpreter. The major-mode of the scheme buffer is probably just comint and you cannot do much about it unless you switch to something more capable like Geiser - something that I'd recommend you do.

Answer 2

Add this line to your .emacs file:

(setq scheme-program-name "gsi")

(Replace "gsi" with the name of your Scheme interpreter.)

You can then start the interpreter with M-x run-scheme. You can evaluate pieces of code by using C-x C-e (to evaluate the sexp before the point) or with C-M-x to evaluate the sexp you're in right now. You can also load a file with C-c C-l.