[comp.emacs] What is temacs doing?

mbroadbe@gara.une.oz (Mark Broadbent ) (06/24/88)

	I'm in the process of porting GNU-emacs 18.41.0 to a GOULD NP1.
After adapting unexec.c for the NP1 COFF format, it now produces an
executable called src/temacs. However, "temacs" then fails to build "xemacs".
It produces the following error output:

###
make -f xmakefile  all
./temacs -batch -l inc-vers
./temacs: syntax error at line 3: `(' unexpected
*** Exit 2

Stop.
*** Exit 1

Stop.
###

What is happening? The INSTALL and PROBLEMS documents don't mention this.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Mark Broadbent               ACSnet:   mbroadbe@gara.une.oz
Gould, Sydney.               UUCP:     gould!gldsyd!mbroadbe

rmf@actnyc.UUCP (Robert M. Fuhrer) (06/29/88)

In article <67@gara.une.oz> mbroadbe@gara.une.oz (Mark Broadbent ) writes:
>
>executable called src/temacs. However, "temacs" then fails to build "xemacs".
>
>./temacs -batch -l inc-vers
>./temacs: syntax error at line 3: `(' unexpected
>*** Exit 2

Looks similar to what you get when you try to run a corrupted executable
(e.g., one with a bad magic number), or an executable built for the wrong
type of machine (e.g., running a Pyramid executable on a Sun :^).  The
exec(2) call that make uses which actually tries to run temacs finds a
wierd magic number (which should by all rights indicate a binary executable),
and assumes that it's a shell script.  Hence the 'syntax error'.  This
happens particularly on machines such as Pyramids (I believe), which don't
know enough to distinguish binaries for other machines from command scripts.
-- 
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