Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!castle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.uucp (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Is Xerox PCL (system date 7/20/88) the latest?
Message-ID: <691@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Aug 89 11:15:55 GMT
References: <935@pcsbst.UUCP>
Sender: news@aiai.ed.ac.uk
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.uucp (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 46

In article <935@pcsbst.UUCP> jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) writes:
>In KCL, there's a file called c/unixfasl.c which implements one of two
>functions, depending on the setting of an SFASL macro. 

The SFASL macro is part of AKCL.  The "standard" KCL doesn't have it.

>The first function, called funload() (if SFASL is not defined), simply
>loads the contents of a .o file and invokes the first function (which
>in kcl generated .o files is a wrapper for all the other functions, so
>this makes sense).

Actually, the function is called "fasload" in the KCL and AKCL I have.

>The second function, called faslink(), is a bit more of a mystery.
>First off, it only seems to work on BSD systems. 

That's because it uses the "-A" option to "ld".

>What exactly does faslink() do?

In standard KCL (I'm not sure about AKCL), it lets you load a ".o"
file and link in things from other ".o" files or from libraries.
This is not necessary when loading KCL compiled Lisp, but can be
necessary for loading compiled C code.

>Why isn't funload() supported if you have faslink()? 

In standard KCL, both are supported.  However, faslink is arguably
more general.

In AKCL, perhaps they are two different ways of getting the same
functionality?  

>What's the difference between doing a (load "..") on an object file
>and (fasl ...)

Well, load can load files that haven't been compiled yet.  Maybe
fasl can't.  And maybe fasl can let you specify libraries (which
load normally does not.)

But fasl seems to be an AKCL addition to KCL, and I haven't actually
used it or looked into what it does.

Jeff Dalton,                      JANET: J.Dalton@uk.ac.ed             
AI Applications Institute,        ARPA:  J.Dalton%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Edinburgh University.             UUCP:  ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!J.Dalton