[cffi-devel] clisp+cffi on windows+cygwin+emacsNT+slime -- the latter two prevent a library from loading

[Mirko Vukovic]

Hello,

This is a follow up on a question I posted several months ago, when I
was unable to link to the GNU Scientific Library from clisp (while
others could).

I did a bit more digging, and I narrowed down the problem, but I am
still looking for a solution.

I am running clisp built on cygwin on windows.  I mainly run clisp
through slime on top of emacs_nt (emacs built for windows).

I can link to the library, cyggsl from clisp, meaning, I start an
x-terminal, start clisp and execute:
>(cffi:load-foreign-library "/bin/cyggsl-0.dll")

But if I do that from slime, then the load fails:
Unable to load foreign library (NIL).
  FFI:OPEN-FOREIGN-LIBRARY: Cannot open library "/bin/cyggsl-0.dll":
"No such file or directory"
   [Condition of type LOAD-FOREIGN-LIBRARY-ERROR]

The problem seems to lie with slime and emacs_nt.  I had a similar
problem already, because these two would not export the DISPLAY
variable needed by some other applications.  The problem is not
universal, because I can load other libraries via slime:
cyggslcblas-0.dll for example.

I could not figure out what is it that the windows version of
emacs+slime is causing cffi not no see the library.  Anyone else has a
clue?

Thanks, (and happy holidays),

Mirko