[slime-devel] help: swank + acl81_express refuses to start in CVS emacs

[Madhu]

I noticed this problem only in emacs 23.0.60 (not 22.1) and allegro
express 8.1 on linux:

,----
| emacs -Q -eval '(add-to-list (quote load-path) "~/path/to/slime")' -eval '(require (quote slime))'
| C-u M-x slime /path/to/acl_express/alisp
`----

,---- In the *inferior-lisp* buffer:
| (progn (load "~/path/to/slime/swank-loader.lisp" :verbose t) (funcall (read-from-string "swank-loader:init")) (funcall (read-from-string "swank:start-server") "/tmp/slime.12688" :coding-system "iso-latin-1-unix"))
| 
| International Allegro CL Free Express Edition
| 8.1 (Linux (x86)) (Jun 29, 2008 13:34)
| Copyright (C) 1985-2007, Franz Inc., Oakland, CA, USA.  All Rights
| Reserved.
| 
| [snip]
| 
| ;; Swank started at port: 40835.
| 40835
| CL-USER(2): CL-USER(2):
| 
| ;; swank:close-connection: eof encountered on stream
|                            #<MULTIVALENT stream socket connected from
|                              localhost/40835 to localhost/46300 @
|                              #x7158daaa>
`----

Allegro drops the connection as soon as emacs connects.

,---- And in Emacs:
| Debugger entered: (("Error in timer" slime-attempt-connection (#<process inferior-lisp> nil 2) (file-error "make client process failed" "connection refused" :name "SLIME Lisp" :buffer nil :host "127.0.0.1" :service 56408)))
|   (condition-case data (apply fun args) (error (debug nil ...)))
|   slime-timer-call(slime-attempt-connection #<process inferior-lisp> nil 2)
|   apply(slime-timer-call (slime-attempt-connection #<process inferior-lisp> nil 2))
|   byte-code("[snip]" [timer apply 5 6] 4)
|   timer-event-handler([t 18720 56375 253953 0.3 slime-timer-call (slime-attempt-connection #<process inferior-lisp> nil 2) nil])
`----

[The probem persists after updating patches for ACL (including the aug
 27 base patch).  The problem was not observed in the ACL 8.1 release
 from 2007 (but as that distribution is unavailable, I am not able to
 check).]

The calls at allegro probably looks like:

   (ERROR END-OF-FILE :STREAM ...)
   ((:EFFT DC-READ-CHAR :LATIN1-BASE) :UNKNOWN :UNKNOWN ...)
   (SWANK::DECODE-MESSAGE
      #<MULTIVALENT stream socket connected from localhost/43977 to
        localhost/55570 @ #x7158963a>)

I've ensured consistent coding systems between emacs and slime, I am
stumped at finding a workaround, so I am soliciting suggestions

--
Madhu