Re: [Reduce-algebra-developers] reduce on 64-bit gentoo

[Arthur N. <ac...@ca...>]

The file "reduce.img" in the CSL version is a single file that is 
structured as with a mini-file system within it. One sub-part of it is 
known as "InitialImage" and is the main heap image loaded at the start of 
a run. Other units within that one file are the "fasl" (for fast-loadable) 
files representing dynamically loadable units of the Code that makes up 
Reduce. When you go "load_package xxxx" in general it accesses and loads 
several of these - a top level one called (sort of) xxxx.fasl and then 
others that are sub-components of the package concerned.

CSL does it this way so that all those resources are in a single file, and 
you only pay the operating system overhead of going to the system's 
file-directory search once to find "reduce.img", while other systems will 
open and close files for every single fast-loadable file used. It also 
measn that there is just one (big) file there rather than many many 
smaller ones, and my view when I set that up was that if you had many 
files then perhaps a few would get lost or corrupted and you might not 
notice for ages....

So reduce.img(InitialImage) refers to the start-up heap image as stored as 
a component of the file reduce.img.

This has been the situation since around the initial release of CSL.

         Arthur

On Thu, 8 Oct 2015, Andrey G. Grozin wrote:

> After installing lsb-release and recompiling reduce on my 64-bit gentoo 
> box, everything works. So, when packaging reduce for gentoo, I'll have to 
> include lsb-release in the list of build-time dependences.
>
> What remains unsolved is the behavious on my 32-bit gentoo box. From where 
> has "(InitialImage)" appeared after the correct reduce.img file path? This 
> problem does not appear in the 2014-11-30 snapshot; it is a result of some 
> later change.
>
> Many thanks for your help,
> Andrey
>
>