5.1 Loading a system

The system foo is loaded (and compiled, if necessary) by evaluating the following Lisp form:

(asdf:load-system :foo)

On some implementations (see Convenience Functions), ASDF hooks into the cl:require facility and you can just use:

(require :foo)

Note that the canonical name of a system is a string, conventionally lowercase. A system name can also be specified as a symbol (including a keyword), in which case its symbol-name is taken and lowercased. The name must be a suitable value for the :name initarg to make-pathname in whatever filesystem the system is to be found.

The lower-casing-symbols behaviour is unconventional, but was selected after some consideration. The type of systems we want to support either have lowercase as customary case (Unix, Mac, Windows) or silently convert lowercase to uppercase (lpns).