Hi Bruno, thanks for your detailed answer! In my summary this means that .mem files are completely useless for third-party programs unless all fas files are shipped and .mem files always being rebuilt?
If this is the case, we will have a "slight" problem with xindy, because this is the way the build process is set up by the upstream author, and rewritting the whole build and distribution process *independently* from upstream xindy is not an option, and I am quite sure from the level of activity I see that Joachim will not do the rewrite :-( > If you don't like this rule, or it cannot be implemented in Debian, then don't > use .mem files for packages other than clisp itself. ... > Linux distros runs ldconfig each time a new shared library gets installed. > Rebuilding .mem files is a similar concept. I disagree with the ldconfig analogy, but I agree that we have to do something. It is similar to the format dumps of (pdf(e))tex etc used, which we do rebuild at certain times - only that this is supported and done upstream, too, while this is not the case with xindy. > This is wishful thinking. .mem files don't work like that. But *you* do know when the internal representation changes, or? This is not something that falls from the sky like a meteorite? clisp *could* provide this information (that is why I always said API version and didn't use the fasl-loader version). Just make a counter 1,2,3,4... for each change of the internal representation. This is what would make the most sense, and would allow other programs to use .mem files, too. > .mem files are really only an optimization of the startup time. It allows > to reduce the startup time from something like 0.1 sec ... 1.0 sec to > the range 0.001 sec ... 0.1 sec. Which is a relevant speed-up, considering there are old computers where this needs to be multiplied with a factor of 10 or more (embedded devices etc including!). ALl the best and thanks again for your explanations and help Norbert -- PREINING Norbert http://www.preining.info Accelia Inc. + JAIST + TeX Live + Debian Developer GPG: 0x860CDC13 fp: F7D8 A928 26E3 16A1 9FA0 ACF0 6CAC A448 860C DC13
