[clbuild-devel] Exception after clbuild install with debian's sbcl - and the 'common-lisp-controller'

[Dietrich Bollmann]

Hi again :)

After installing sbcl and and the userland with clbuild 
I got the following error when trying to run programs with `clbuild
run':

clbuild run demodemo

> ...snip...
> unhandled SIMPLE-ERROR in thread #<SB-THREAD:THREAD "initial
thread" {A72DEE9}>:
>   Error during processing of --eval option "(load
\"/home/dietrich/lisp/clbuild/clbuild.lisp\")":
> 
>   failed to find the WRITE-DATE
of /home/dietrich/lisp/clbuild/source/slime/swank-loader.fasl:
>     No such file or directory

The reason probably is that the debian sbcl install uses the
`common-lisp-controller' ( http://www.cliki.net/common-lisp-controller )
which (citation from http://www.cliki.net/common-lisp-controller ):

  [...] does not anymore use the logical pathname system. Instead it
  overrides the asdf:output-files method to divert the fasls to a user,
  implementation and library specific location. At the

moment /var/cache/common-lisp-controller/user-name/implementation/library/.

and I could easily fix the problem by compiling the file myself.

Still, as the cbuild lisp installation should work with any other lisp
to bootstrap, it might be helpful to add some code to the clbuild
installation which checks if the fasl file exists and - if not -
compiles it before trying to load it.

While using my new sbcl installation another related question came to my
mind:

I was very happy about debian's sbcl to put the fasl files into a 
directory different from the directory of the source files.

Is there some way to obtain the same result using clbuild's sbcl?

Thanks,

Dietrich