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common-lispquicklisp

How to force Quicklisp to download a library?

My Debian system has an old version of the FLEXI-STREAMS library installed as a dependency of some other Debian package. As a result, on every Lisp implementation on the system, ASDF automatically loads that library from somewhere deep in the bowels of the filesystem.

Since Quicklisp uses ASDF, (ql:quickload :flexi-streams) always loads the Debian version of FLEXI-STREAMS, and never downloads the latest version from the Quicklisp repository.

Removing the Debian version of this library will probably break whichever Debian package depends on it.

How do I get Quicklisp to ignore the local version and go ahead and install the latest version?

Solution

  • If the system is visible via ASDF, there is no way to force Quicklisp to use the Quicklisp-supplied version.

    Removing the Debian version is the easiest option. If something else depends on it, that should be removed too.