Steel Bank Common Lisp

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003, Harald Hanche-Olsen wrote:

> I am trying to build sbcl on solaris 5.8 (sparc) using cmucl 18e as
> the host lisp.  All goes well until this:
>
> gcc -g -Wall -Dsparc -DSVR4 -I.  -c -o ldso-stubs.o ldso-stubs.S
> /usr/ccs/bin/as: "/var/tmp/cckoR7xN.s", line 306: error: invalid characte=
r (0x40)

I think it is possible to install gcc to use 'gnu as' (gas) as assembler
instead of 'solaris as'. Solaris tools tends to be more picky on such
unusual inputs. It is several years since I installed gcc on solaris last, =
so
I can't remember details here.

> followed by oodles of similar lines.  Clearly, it is the #\@ in
> "@function" it is complaining about.  Normally, I can repair minor
> glitches myself, but I know zilch about sparc assembler, so I am at a
> loss here.  Any advice?
>
> (I had hoped to use sbcl in a web application with apache and
>  mod_lisp.  Right now I use cmucl, but because cmucl does not support
>  threading on sparc, and our web server lives on a sparc, I run cmucl
>  together with the postgresql server that I also need on a freebsd
>  box, with an ssh encrypted channel between the two machines.  It has
>  a bit too much the flavor of baling wire and chewing gum for my taste
>  though, which is why I would like to get it all together on one
>  server.)

If you wants multithreading on solaris, sbcl don't do that only on
x86, as far as I know. I would be very interested if sbcl could provide
multithreading on Solaris, since I now use the fork system call and
CMUCL on Solaris for several web applications, using Zope as web server
and a mod_lisp like module for communications. I would prefere to replace
the fork with threads instead, but the database and the webserver all runs
on a solaris iron.

--
Gisle S=E6lensminde
Computational biology unit, University of Bergen, Norway
Email: gisle@...

Harald Hanche-Olsen <hanche@...> writes:

> I am trying to build sbcl on solaris 5.8 (sparc) using cmucl 18e as
> the host lisp.  All goes well until this:
>
> gcc -g -Wall -Dsparc -DSVR4 -I.  -c -o ldso-stubs.o ldso-stubs.S
> /usr/ccs/bin/as: "/var/tmp/cckoR7xN.s", line 306: error: invalid character (0x40)
>
> followed by oodles of similar lines.  Clearly, it is the #\@ in
> "@function" it is complaining about.  Normally, I can repair minor
> glitches myself, but I know zilch about sparc assembler, so I am at a
> loss here.  Any advice?

It is the #\@ that's the problem, yes.  The reason this hasn't been
replaced is that Sun's as(1) wants the directive to read
        .type foo,#function
which of course plays merry hell with C macros.  There is no way of
getting a token including a #\# out of one :-(.

The unsympathetic answer is "use a gcc that invokes gas(1), rather
than the Sun assembler".  Alternatives include preprocessing
ldso-stubs.S yourself and doing a search-and-replace, or waiting for
0.8.4 (as Paul Dietz has asked me to build a Solaris binary, so I
shall be putting one up for download).

> (I had hoped to use sbcl in a web application with apache and
>  mod_lisp.  Right now I use cmucl, but because cmucl does not support
>  threading on sparc, and our web server lives on a sparc, I run cmucl
>  together with the postgresql server that I also need on a freebsd
>  box, with an ssh encrypted channel between the two machines.  It has
>  a bit too much the flavor of baling wire and chewing gum for my taste
>  though, which is why I would like to get it all together on one
>  server.)

This sounds like you're not aware that SBCL does not currently support
threading on the SPARC platform (or indeed on anything other than
x86/Linux).  It may not be too far away in terms of possibility, but
it certainly hasn't been implemented yet (and it probably won't be
without a pressing reason; that is, at least one user willing to
make an investment).

I'm sorry to disappoint,

Cheers,

Christophe
-- 
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/       +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%")    (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)

+ Christophe Rhodes <csr21@...>:

| The unsympathetic answer is "use a gcc that invokes gas(1), rather
| than the Sun assembler".

That's okay, I can live with the perceived lack of sympathy.  In light
of the following I guess I'll wait for 0.8.4.

| This sounds like you're not aware that SBCL does not currently
| support threading on the SPARC platform (or indeed on anything other
| than x86/Linux).

That's right.  I was pleasantly surprised when I read what I took as
stating that SBCL did support threading on Solaris.  Guess I missed
the words (as of version 0.8.3, on Linux x86 only) at the opening
paragraph of
<http://sbcl.sourceforge.net/manual/extensions.html#AEN660>.

| I'm sorry to disappoint,

Don't apologize; it's not your fault.  I'll just drown my sorrows in a
nice glass of Guiness stout instead, and then I'll go back to my
original setup.  8-)  Thanks to all for quick answers.  You saved me
from wasting too much of my time.

- Harald