Re: Problem with .FAS file on SunOS4

[haible (Bruno Haible)]

David Arnold <daa93@aber.ac.uk> writes about old .FAS files:

> *** - This file was produced by another lisp version, must be recompiled.
> 
> Since I do not have the source code for this file, and being a bit
> of a hacker, I thought I would have a look at the file. The first thing
> that struck me was a number that looked suspiciously like a date in
> the first line.

Yes, this is the date of the last incompatible change to the bytecode.

> I then decided to alter the date in
> the original '.fas' file to be the same as in the simple one.

I would not recommend to do this.

> Does this mean that I cannot use this file, or can I get a copy of an
> earlier compiler to run it on.

Indeed, you cannot use this .FAS file with newer CLISP versions.
Either
  - you get a not-so-new CLISP (available in the 199x-yy-zz/ directories
    of the source/ and binaries/*/ directories on
    ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de),
or
  - someone writes a "decompiler" that turns the bytecode contained in the
    .fas file into some primitive Lisp code which can then be compiled
    by a newer CLISP version.


                    Bruno Haible
                    haible@ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de