Error Dictfull

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

    Date: Fri, 9 Mar 90 11:48 CST
    From: ARTHUR@KBS2.TAMU.EDU (Arthur Keen)

    I would like to know if anyone has experienced this error, and what can be done to work around it.

    I cut a 3D picture of a side and face cutter which I had made in S-geometry, 
    and imported it into the graphic editor of Concordia, where I put textual 
    labels on it and drew a hatched cross section of a part to show the tool 
    cutting into the part. On trying to hardcopy the picture, I got the following error:

    Error: Dictfull
    Offending Command: def

    Stack:

    0
    /linebits
    -savelevel-

    This error was printed over the partially hardcopied file. 
    By partial, I mean only the bitmap image had been printed. 
    I blanked out the graphic editor additions and it printed ok, 
    then blanked out the captured bitmap image and it also printed 
    out ok, so my conclusion is that some undesired interaction had 
    occured, or we need to allocate more lmfs or swap on our 
    printserver. Does anyone have any ideas?

"Dictfull" is a Postscript error; the message came from your laser
printer, not from any Symbolics software.  Postscript is an interpreted
programming language, and dictionaries in Postscript are used similarly
to packages in Common Lisp (they are actually general-purpose hash
tables, but they are mostly used to hold name->value/function bindings);
the "def" command is like INTERN or SETF of GETHASH.  Unlike Common Lisp
hash tables and packages, though, they have fixed maximum sizes, and
Dictfull is the error you get when you try to add an element to a full
dictionary.

In other words, your Postscript program is too complex and the printer's
symbol table overflowed.

                                                barmar