Re: [Axiom-developer] Aldor compilation for Axiom

[Ralf Hemmecke]

Hello Bill,

Thanks a lot for your answer.

On 11/06/2006 03:37 AM, Bill Page wrote:
> On November 5, 2006 7:31 PM Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
> > could someone tell me what ")compile blah.as" is actually 
> > doing in Axiom?
> >
> > It is certainly more than saying
> >
> > aldor -O -Fasy -Fao -Flsp -laxiom -Mno-AXL_W_WillObsolete -DAxiom -Y 
> > $AXIOM/algebra blah.as
> >
> > (without having an Axiom session running).
> >
> > I think someone once said that )compile calls aldor with the 
> > above flags and then also generates object files from the .lsp
> > files.
>
> Yes.
>
> > How could I achieve that from outside Axiom?
>
> Do you mean generate stand alone object files from .lsp files? This
> would be done with a Lisp compiler, of course. In principle you can
> use GCL just like Axiom does, but you must also provide a Lisp
> run-time. The Aldor distribution has such a lisp run-time that is
> supposed to be equivalent to the Aldor C run-time environment, but
> my initial attempts to use it with GCL ran into trouble - maybe
> some GCL incompatibility with the lisp run-time source?

No no. I just want to compile files for later use within Axiom, but I 
don't want to start an interactive axiom session, obviously.

> If you want to generate object files that can later be loaded into
> Axiom, I am not sure that it is possible to do this outside of Axiom
> because I suspect there symbols that are known only to Axiom. If you
> discover a way, I would be quite interested. Remember that because
> it is written in Lisp AXIOM really just GCL + a lot of extra Lisp code.
> So internally in AXIOM, compiling Lisp to object code is done by the
> same underlying GCL mechanisms.
>
> > Or is it enough to provide the .lsp files and the compilation to
> > object files is triggered when the code is first used?
>
> No. You must compile the .lsp files inside Axiom.
>
> Ralf, do you know section 18.12 : Using Aldor outside AXIOM for AXIOM
> of the Aldor User's Guide?
>
> http://www.aldor.org/docs/HTML/chap18.html#12
>
> "When you are ready to test and use your code within AXIOM, start
> up AXIOM and then )cd to the directory containing your compiled code.
> Invoke )compile on each .lsp file you wish to use."
>
> See also section 18.11.

Good point. I should really even more often read the AUG. But I usually 
read the .pdf version and there the part about AXIOM is missing. I hope 
the html doc does not get removed suddenly. Hopefully it is mirrored 
somewhere.

> > Further, I actually have a whole library (several .as files). 
> > What would be the right procedure to compile them externally
> > (I want to do that via Makefiles) and then provide some nice
> > mechanism to load the compiled library into Axiom.

> Why compile "externally"? Why not just use Axiom in your Makefile,
> the way it is currently done in the Axiom build. E.g.
>
> myfile.NRLIB/code.o: myfile.as
>         echo ')compile myfile.as' | AXIOMsys

Very good suggestion. It seems that I will take that approach. I have to 
test whether I still like it if some error occurs, though.

Hmmm, maybe I rather generate first a .al library and the .lsp files and 
only then use your approach to compile the .lsp files via AXIOMsys as 
you suggested.

> > I just need a rough overview.

> I hope these comments are some some use.

Yes, definitely. Thanks a lot.

Ralf