Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!enea!kth!draken!chalmers!myab!lars
From: lars@myab.se (Lars Pensj|)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Portability problem with gnu-emacs
Message-ID: <441@myab.se>
Date: 13 Sep 88 08:42:37 GMT
Reply-To: lars@myab.se (Lars Pensj|)
Organization: Myab Gothenburg, Sweden
Lines: 31

This proposal has probably been mentioned before, but I have not seen it.

Why is gnu-emacs implemented with the self dump feature?  I know that
it speeds up the start-up, but it is extremly unportable.

A suggestion:

Let temacs write the compiled lisp code into a file 'code.c' in the following
format:

char lisp_code[] = {
23, 45, 76, 93, -34, 45,
...
};


And then relink a new emacs with 'code.o'. 'temacs' can be linked with
an empty 'lisp_code' defenition.

This should be portable. Byte order should not be any problem, because
you write the file 'code.c' directly from the memory.

Some compilers even have a flag to put data in text area, which is
just what is wanted now.


    Lars Pensj|
    lars@myab.se
-- 
    Lars Pensj|
    {decvax,philabs}!mcvax!enea!chalmers!myab!lars