Re: [Texmacs-dev] 1.0.1.18 : Proposed Patch for "Stack Overflow" Cygwin errors.

[David Allouche]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 12:16:56AM -0700, Duke Whang wrote:
> [This was sent to address@hidden as well]
> 
> 
> Summary :
> 
> [1] TeXmacs 1.0.1.18 (and 1.0.1.17) on Cygwin [under Windows XP]
> produces "Stack overflow" errors.
> 
> [2] Proposed change:
>     Revert line 18 of 
>        /usr/local/share/TeXmacs/progs/core/boot/compat.scm
> 
>     CURRENT line 18 (1.0.1.18)    
>     (debug-set! stack 10000000)
> 
>     PROPOSED CHANGE (this is identical to the version in 1.0.1.15)
>     (debug-set! stack 1000000)

I do not know what this change was introduced for. I think scheme code
requiring such a big stack is probably buggy, but maybe there is a
good reason for it.

An alternative fix might be changing the $prefix/bin/texmacs script to
disable the stack size limitation (maybe using "ulimit -s"), or
something to that effect.


> [3] Comment:
>     The old naming conventions of the installation directories,
>     namely
>          /usr/local/share/TeXmacs-[version]
>          /usr/local/libexec/TeXmacs-[version]
>             (examples :
>                /usr/local/share/TeXmacs-1.0.1.15
>                /usr/local/libexec/TeXmacs-1.0.1.15)
>     rather than the current (1.0.1.17 and 1.0.1.18) naming
>     conventions
>          /usr/local/share/TeXmacs/
>          /usr/local/libexec/TeXmacs/
>     allows for *much* easier rollbacks if future versions do
>     not work.  (Indeed, installation directory "versioning"
>     allowed me to run a simple "diff" to debug this particular
>     problem!)

No! Please do not say this. People have been cursing the old naming
convention for monthes and years and we are all very happy of the new
convention.

If you want to diff two versions, just use diff (or a graphical
utility like emacs ediff mode, GNOME meld or kdiff3) on the source
trees.

A good way to install packages in /usr/local is to use:

  ./configure --prefix /usr/local/texmacs-1.0.1.18

and change the version number for each install.

Then use some symlinks to make changing installations easy.
For example:

  [ install /usr/local/texmacs-1.0.1.17 ]
  cd /usr/local
  ln -s texmacs-1.0.1.17 texmacs
  cd /usr/local/bin
  ln -s ../texmacs/bin/* .
  [ install /usr/local/texmacs-1.0.1.18 ]
  cd /usr/local
  rm texmacs
  ln -s texmacs-1.0.1.18 texmacs

There are also a number of softwares which help you manage your
symlinks in this way (look for "gar" and "stow", I think). Generally,
it is a _bad idea_ to install software directly in /usr/local/.

If you want to run an old version of texmacs, then you just have to
set the PATH for one command:

  PATH=/usr/local/texmacs-1.0.1.15/bin:$PATH texmacs

Ideally, it should be possible just to run
/usr/local/texmacs-1.0.1.15/bin/texmacs, but since the fig2ps and
tm_gs scripts are not run by absolute path, that may not work
correctly.

-- 
David Allouche         | GNU TeXmacs -- Writing is a pleasure
Free software engineer |    http://www.texmacs.org
   http://ddaa.net     |    http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/texmacs
   address@hidden  |    address@hidden
TeXmacs is NOT a LaTeX front-end and is unrelated to emacs.