RE: [Axiom-developer] building Axiom with GCL Version_2_6_7pre fails

[Bill Page]

Mike,

On May 19, 2005 7:14 PM you wrote:

> I wrote:
> |
> | Would you like me to update the repository now?
>
> Only if convernient for you.  It would be better if we were
> running the same Axiom code into which I can plug GCL 2.6.7pre
> to catch that problem.

If you have a version of the Axiom source that builds with
gcl-2.6.6, then I think you should go ahead and try your source
with 2.6.7pre. I took a quick look at the make-databases lisp
code and there are several places where it calls probe-file etc.
I think a call that unexpectedly returns NIL seems most likely
to me to be the source of problem. But I don't have a lot of
confidence in my abilities in lisp and haven't had enough time
yet to play.

I am having some trouble updating the darcs repository since
I am still recovering from the loss of the motherboard on my
main Windows system about a month ago. I opted to replace my
Intel 2.4 GHz chip with an AMD Athalon 3500+. I really like
the new AMD chip, but that necessitated completely rebuilding
my Windows environment and it hasn't been easy. (: As Tim
Daly says: There is no such thing as an easy job. :) And now
most recently, having just reinstalled darcs 1.0.2 on my Windows
XP system, I find that I can run it successfully under the
Windows command shell but not under MSYS. Nuts. Another thing
to fix. :(

Anyway in my test, all I did was to pull Version_2_6_7pre from
cvs and create a tarball to replace the gcl-2.6.6.tgz in the
Axiom zips directory. And then rebuild Axiom. It worked the
first time I tried it about 2 weeks but then failed last week
after a cvs update.

My objective in doing this was to set up a version of Axiom
in which I could run the HTTP server code that Camm created.
I want to be able to pass commands to Axiom via an HTTP form
with a textfield and get the results back at least as simple
plain text. So my next lisp question is going to be: How do
I call Axiom from within a lisp function to evaluate a string
as a command and return the result as a string? I presume
that this already happens somewhere already Axiom when it
talks to the hyperdoc front-end. Any idea where I should look?

BTW, the same approach of replacing gcl-2.6.6 with
Version_2_6_7pre works fine when running x86-64 Fedora Core 3
Linux on the new AMD. With the most recent axiom--main--1
sources I just had to remove the run-process patch that Tim
added since it is now included in Version_2_6_7pre. And man!
Does the build ever fly under on this platform! I still can't
believe that GCL builds in under 2 minutes flat and the whole
Axiom build is done in about 45 minutes, including running
the tests. Amazing.

I REALLY like this 64-bit stuff and I can't wait to have this
on Windows. Apparently there is a 64-bit Windows XP version
that will be available soon. I wonder how easy it is to build
64-bit apps with MSYS/MinGW?

Regards,
Bill Page.