Dumping doesn't work

[Hannu Koivisto]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

[From the discussion in gnu.emacs.help]

> Hannu Koivisto wrote:
>> 
>> Should it be possible to dump an already dumped and installed
>> Emacs?
>
> Yes.
>
>> I tried...
>> 
>> /usr/bin/emacs-21.1 --no-site-file -q -batch \
>>   -eval '(dump-emacs "./kala" "/usr/bin/emacs-21.1")'
>> 
>> ...in my Debian GNU/Linux x86 unstable system but the created
>> executable "kala" doesn't work; all I get is:
>> 
>> * ./kala
>> --11:---F1<cursor here>
>> 
>> If I hit RET at that point, I get "End of file during parsing" and
>> end up back to the shell prompt.
>
> Sounds like a bug.  Please report it.  If you can step with a debugger
> through the startup code of the redumped Emacs and see what's different
> there from a ``normal'' Emacs startup, that would be really nice.

I'm sorry but I can't do that right now (I've got a thesis to
finish), perhaps in few weeks or so.

Some new information, though:

If I try to run my dumped "kala" executable with -nw argument (I
have DISPLAY set so the failed invocation described above should
have opened an X window), it starts.  It doesn't do anything like
read my init file or the system wide init file (perhaps this is a
feature?), but I get a *scratch* buffer, minibuffer displays "Back
to top level." and I can evaluate stuff, open files, etc.  Also, it
does not seem to process all command line arguments.  At least
-eval and -batch have no effect whatsoever.

FWIW, I verified that I get the same behaviour also with 21.2 in
Debian GNU/Linux x86 stable.

-- 
Hannu