[Axiom-developer] directory/truename transition

[daly]

Camm,

>> All versions of Axiom have a local copy of GCL cached
>> so it would be fine to do the transition

> So if an external GCL with the new semantics is present, will this
> break any of the windows branches?

Well that was the basis of my question about a conditional flag for
old/new semantics. A conditional flag would make it possible to
customize the compile-time code for GCL-2.6.8 vs GCL-2.7.0. Even
without this an Axiom branch can handle this case by using a
known-good cached version or using the built-in zips/patch mechanism
against Axiom sources.

As far as I'm aware all of the branches have cached versions of GCL
which are guaranteed to work.

Axiom can be configured to work with any version of the GCL via a
GCLVERSION flag. Based on the setting of this flag the axiom build
is patched as follows.

Axiom has a directory called zips which keeps a couple cached versions
of GCL, usually the current and previous versions. It also has patch
files which are applied for each specific GCL version. Thus if someone
chooses GCL-2.6.8
  the GCL-2.6.8.tgz is expanded in a subdirectory,
  axiom-specific patches are applied, 
  the patched GCL is built
  Axiom builds on the patched version.

So without a conditional flag the "coping mechanism" is to create
GCL-2.7.0 specific patch files against GCL and Axiom sources which
would be applied if the GCLVERSION chosen is GCL-2.7.0.

So, in general, I don't see that your changes will cause a problem.
We have dealt with this before and have machinery in place to cope.

Tim