This document applies to Allegro CL 6.0 (see information on old FAQs for availability of older Allegro CL FAQs). This is a list of frequently asked questions on Allegro Common Lisp (ACL) 6.0. ACL 6.0 runs on various UNIX platforms (including Linux and FreeBSD), Windows 95/98/2000/Me and Windows NT 4.0 (Intel) and on MkLinux and linuxppc on PowerPC based machines. Please read this document before sending mail to bugs@franz.com or allegro-cl@franz.com. Periodically, also, items from this list will be incorporated into our documentation and possibly dropped from here. (The allegro-cl@franz.com address is to a general mailing list. Except for spam filtering, the list is uncensored and membership is open to all. The accuracy of postings made to the list is not guaranteed. See Q 1.2-4) Is there a mailing list for Allegro CL? How do I sign up?)
Click here to view the document changes.htm which lists recent modifications..
This FAQ comprises a number of HTML files. Each topic has it own file containing all questions specifically related to that topic.
Click here for information on downloading the FAQ. (We recommend that you look at the FAQ on the Franz Inc. website since it is always the most up to date, while a downloaded FAQ may go out of date. The title above -- Allegro CL 6.0 Frequently Asked Questions with Answers -- is a link to the FAQ on the Franz Inc. website, useful if you are looking at a downloaded version and want to see the latest version.)
A copy of the current ACL documentation is also on our website (see http://www.franz.com/support/documentation/6.0/doc/introduction.htm) and there are links from FAQ pages to that documentation. Note that the ACL HTML documentation will be periodically updated to correct errors and to provide new information based on customer questions. This document is linked to the latest update of the documentation. After updates are available, unless you update the Allegro CL documentation by downloading the updated version, the information you see on a page referred to by a FAQ document may be different from the corresponding page of your version of the ACL documentation. Instructions for updating the documentation will be provided when the first update is available.
Your comments, additions and fixes to this list are welcome: please send them to bugs@franz.com.
Each numbered heading N.M is a link to a separate HTML file in the faq-entries/ subdirectory named faqN-M.htm (e.g. the file faq-entries/faq1-1.htm contains answers to the question about 1.1 ACL current version info).
Q1.1-1) What is the current version of ACL? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
1.2. ACL-related communication
Q 1.2-1) How should I report bugs? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
Q 1.2-2) dribble-bug output seems to lag behind Lisp I/O. (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
Q 1.2-3) Sometimes CL output is not logged in the dribble-bug file. What do I do about this? (Created or last modified 11/30/00)
Q 1.2-4) Is there a mailing list for Allegro CL? How do I sign up? (Created or last modified 8/31/01)
Q 1.3-1) Is there a public patch directory you maintain for incremental patches to ACL? If so, how do I get to it? (Created or last modified 10/5/99)
Q 1.3-3) Why are there patches on the ftp site with date stamps that are still in the future? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 1.3-5) Is there a list of available patches for ACL 6.0? (Created or last modified on 11/4/99)
Q 1.4-1) What is the relationship between this FAQ and ACL documentation? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 1.4-2) Is the ACL documentation available on-line? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 1-4.3) Is the ACL documentation updated between releases, and if so, where can I get the update? (modified 9/13/01)
Q 1.5-1) [Windows only] How do I clean out a previous installation if I deleted the files without using the proper uninstall method? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 1.5-2) [Windows only] If I run cleanreg.exe (see Q 1.5-2) before installing ACL 6.0, can I continue to use ACL 5.0.1? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 1.5-3) How do I install source code (I've got the source code license)? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
Q 1.5-4) What is needed to install XEmacs on Windows? (Created 3/20/01)
Q 1.6-1) How do I install the License File into Allegro CL? (Updated 3/15/01)
Q 1.6-2) I have misplaced the email telling me the URL from which I can download your license? (Created 2/5/00)
Q 1.6-3) I can not access the URL for retrieving my license. What should I do? (Created 2/5/00)
Q 1.6-4) I have lost my license, but I am not able to access http://lfs.franz.com:4100/lostlicense. Is there an alternate location? (Created 2/5/00)
Q 1.6-5) [Trial users only] My license file is expiring: how do I to renew and reinstall it? (Updated 3/15/01)
Q 1.6-6) [ACL Trial users only] I am trying to run newlicense to renew my ACL 6.0 trial, but I get an error: "Unknown host: [hostname]". How do I keep ACL 6.0 trial from expiring? (Created 2/5/00)
Q 1.6-7) [ACL Trial users only] When I run newlicense to renew my ACL 6.0 trial, I get a Connection Refused error. How can I fix that? (Updated 3/15/01)
Q 1.6-8) I still have problems with my license file. Can I contact Franz Inc. for assistance? (Created 2/5/00)
Q 1.6-9) When I run newlicense I get the following error message: "NIL cannot be converted to an IP address". Can I fix this? (Updated 3/15/01)
Q 1.6-10) How do I know if I have the latest update to the newlicense program? (Created 3/15/01)
[no entries at this time]
[no entries at this time]
2.3. IBM RS6000
[no entries at this time]
2.4. HP
[no entries at this time]
2.5. Compaq ALPHA
[no entries at this time]
Q 2.6-1) How do I get the functionality of the ~/time/ and ~/date/ format directives available in 3.0.2 in 6.0? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 2.6-2) Why can't I use `dir' with run-shell-command? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 2.6-3) How do I get the functionality of the 3.0.2 function allegro:read-lisp-line? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 2.6-4) How do I control the stack size on Windows? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 2.6-5) How do I get ANSI ACL (rather than Modern ACL) to start when I double-click on an lpr file? (Created 11/14/00)
Q 2.6-6) Code which calls foreign functions seems to run more slowly on Windows 2000 machines. Why? (created 4/5/01)
Q 2.7-1) Does CLIM work with the free Motif 2.1 from www.openmotif.org? (Created 4/26/01)
Q 3.1-1) I'm left with running Lisp processes after I exit my Emacs/xterm. What do I do to avoid this? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.1-2) Why doesn't make-pathname merge the given :directory component with the directory component in :defaults argument? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.1-3) I am getting stack overflows and occasional Lisp failure when I sort on large arrays. Why and what can I do? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.1-4) I have set the stack cushion to a reasonable value, but the soft stack limit is not being detected, and I get a lisp death instead. Why is that? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.1-5) Why does it take so long to load a file that interns several thousand symbols in a package? (Created 11/15/99)
3.2. Garbage collector
No entries at this time.
Q 3.3-1) How do I specify a boolean as an argument in ff calls? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
3.4: Time issues in Allegro CL
No entries at this time.
3.5: Lisp as a shared library (or DLL)
No entries at this time.
Q 3.6-1) Can I use CL-HTTP with Allegro CL 6.0? (Last modified 11/14/00)
No entries at this time.
Q 3.8-1) I get an error when I try to build an image with excl:build-lisp-image (and also with excl:generate-application) but the build process simply quits. How can I debug this error? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.8-2) [UNIX only] Why does generate-application make hard links to the files it copies, and is there a way to change this? (Created 11/19/99)
Q 3.8-3) The image I get when I run build-lisp-image with :runtime non-nil doesn't work (invalid license). Why? (Created 1/16/01)
Q 3.8-4) I notice that when I run generate-application, a license file is placed in the distribution directory. Is that license file tied to the image file? (Created 1/16/01)
Q 3.9-1) Sometimes Allegro CL, particularly large images, run out of memory or fail totally with a bus error or a segv. Why might this be happening? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.9-2) How is heap placement determined and what can go wrong? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
Q 3.9-3) How does Lisp start up, in terms of shared-library linking and loading? (Created or last modified 11/30/00)
Q 3.9-4) What is the "Old Sun4" problem? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 3.9-5) How can I tell what addresses are being used in my process space? (Created or last modified 11/30/00)
Q 3-9.6) [Windows only] How do I move DLL in memory so that it doesn't conflict with the Lisp heap? (Created or last modified 7/17/00)
Q 3-9.7) What does the "Temporarily scaling back lisp reserved region from XXX to YYY bytes." mean? (Created or last modified 7/17/00)
3.10 Problems when using non-Allegro CL programs
Q 4.1-1) How do I print to the emacs-lisp interface created *common-lisp* buffer when I run my application in its own Lisp image? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.1-2) Can I connect a UNIX emacs to a Windows Lisp? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.1-3) Can I run Emacs on Windows and Lisp on UNIX? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.1-4) Why doesn't the emacs-lisp interface startup when I don't have a network connection? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
4.2. Lisp-Editor Protocol (LEP)
Q 4.2-1) How can I open a stream to an emacs buffer? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.2-2) How can another stream be used for background output instead of creating the *background-interaction* buffer? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.2-3) How can arbitrary elisp code be run from lisp? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.2-4) Is there a way to programmatically determine if the emacs-lisp interface connect has been established? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.2-5) How can I tell if lep had a problem? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.3-1) How do I provide scrollable popup menus in Allegro CLIM 2.x? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.3-2) Why do I need an XNLSPATH environment variable? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.3-3) What should I do to avoid getting palette-full error messages? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.3-4) How do I get CLIM on Linux to work with OpenMotif 2.1? (Created 4/26/01)
4.4. Common Graphics and the Integrated Development Environment [Windows only]
Q 4.4-1) How do I not save prefs.cl when I exit the ide? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.4-2) Sometimes when I run my project, I get mysterious redefinition warnings. Why and should I worry about them? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.4-3) I have developed my application in the IDE, and when I test it there it runs fine. But when I try to run the application as generated by File | Build Project Distribution, it starts and the application window appears, but it then immediately exits. (Created or last modified 9/3/99)
Q 4.4-4) Common Graphics seems to run much more slowly when I run on Windows 2000. Why? (Created 4/5/01)
4.5. Runtime
[no entries at this time]
4.6 Allegro CL Trial
(The TRIAL edition is available for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. There are some
restrictions on the product. See the Franz Inc. home page (http://www.franz.com) for more
information on the Trial version. In earlier releases, a LITE version was available on
Windows. In 6.0, there is no LITE version.)
Q 4.6-1) What about patches for an ACL Trial image? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
Q 4.6-2) When I try to run Allegro CL 6.0 Trial, it fails with the error "missing or invalid license file". Why? (Created or last modified 11/14/00)
4.7 OLE [Windows only]
No entries at this time.
Q 4.8-1) How do I set up an Excel spreadsheet for use with AODBC? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
Q 4.9-1) Why does composer:start-composer sometimes warn that "fcntl failed"? (Created or last modified 9/1/99)
No entries at this time.
4.11 Allegro CL jLinker Java interface
Q 4.11-1) Is the jlinker.htm document complete? (Created 11/30/00)
Q 4.11-2) How do I package a Lisp application as a Java Bean? (Created 11/30/00)
Q 4.11-3) How do I package a Lisp application as a Java Servlet? (Created 11/30/00)
You can download the entire FAQ (as a Windows zip file ftp://ftp.franz.com/pub/acl60/acl60faq.zip or a UNIX compressed tar file ftp://ftp.franz.com/pub/acl60/acl60faq.tar.gz) but this is not recommended because this FAQ will be updated from time to time and so a downloaded version will quickly go out of date. We instead recommend you bookmark this page on our website. If you download the FAQ, place it in <Allegro directory>/doc/faq/ (creating the faq/ subdirectory if necessary) for links to work with your copy of the ACL documentation.
$Revision: 1.1.4.11 $
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