Re: [aspell] Followup to XEmacs message

[Harry Henry Gebel]

On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 03:12:27AM -0500, Kevin Atkinson wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Harry Henry Gebel wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 02:27:53AM -0500, Harry Henry Gebel wrote:
> > The version of ispell.el I have on my system is 3.3 .
> Try upgrading to version 3.4 I belives it solves the problem.  If it
> doesn't try contacing the authore of ispell.el, Ken Stevens at
> address@hidden, as I belive it is a problem with ispell.el and
> not Aspell.

You are correct, the problem is in ispell.el . I upgraded to both 3.4 and
3.5b and the problem persisted, so I ran XEmacs with strace and here was
the (relevant) output:

for ispell:

access("/usr/bin/ispell", X_OK)         = 0
open("/dev/null", O_RDONLY)             = 9
pipe([10, 11])                          = 0
fork()                                  = 15246
close(11)                               = 0
close(9)                                = 0
close(11)                               = -1 EBADF (Bad file descriptor)
lseek(10, 0, SEEK_CUR)                  = -1 ESPIPE (Illegal seek)
read(10, "@(#) International Ispell Versio"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "nd the following disclaimer.\n@(#"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "ded with the distribution.\n@(#) "..., 512) = 512
read(10, "#) IS\'\' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLI"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "HEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN C"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "= 0\n\tDEFPAFF = \"words\"\n\tDEFPDICT"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "ispell\"\n\tLIBES = \"\"\n\tLINT = \"lin"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "10\n\tMAX_SCREEN_SIZE = 0\n\tMINCONT"..., 512) = 512
read(10, "\\$*.%\"\n\t!TRUNCATEBAK\n\t!USESH\n\tWO"..., 512) = 81
--- SIGCHLD (Child exited) ---

for aspell:

access("/usr/bin/aspell", X_OK)         = 0
open("/dev/null", O_RDONLY)             = 9
pipe([10, 11])                          = 0
fork()                                  = 15234
close(11)                               = 0
close(9)                                = 0
close(11)                               = -1 EBADF (Bad file descriptor)
lseek(10, 0, SEEK_CUR)                  = -1 ESPIPE (Illegal seek)
read(10, "Error: ", 512)                = 7
read(10, "-v", 512)                     = 2
read(10, " does not take any parameters.", 512) = 30
read(10, "\n", 512)                     = 1
read(10, "", 512)                       = 0

A quick check of ispell.el revealed that ispell.el is checking for ispell
version using `ispell -vv`. When I run `aspell -vv` from the command line I
get the error:

Error: -v does not take any parameters.

The very error revealed in the above strace! I will see if I can change
ispell.el to work with aspell, if I can I will send a patch to the
ispell.el author and to this list (in case anyone else is having the same
problem.) I don't know if I will be able to because my elisp is rusty and
it looks like ispell also uses some of the junk ispell spits out with -vv,
but I will see what I can do. My C is fine, if I can't fix ispell.el I will
patch aspell to provide output that ispell.el likes; of course whether
anyone wants to apply a patch to fix a problem in a different program is an
open question.

-- 
Harry Henry Gebel, ICQ# 76308382
West Dover Hundred, Delaware