Mail Archives: djgpp/2000/03/31/20:52:23
> I recently upgraded my installed DJGPP package to the latest version
> using the pick-list from delorie.com as the basic install. Additional
> packages have been added including the latest version, I think, of
> ispell (isp3120.zip and isp3120d.zip). Ispell appears to work well in a
> dos box, but under emacs an error occurs.
>
> Symbol function definition is void: Start-Process
What version of Emacs do you have? The DJGPP port of Emacs 19.34
doesn't support the Emacs built-in Ispell interface, but Emacs 20.5
does. This support is not part of the official Emacs distribution yet
(it will be in version 21), so make sure you have installed the latest
em2005b.zip distribution from the DJGPP sites on SimTel.NET, and make
sure you have removed any older ispell.el and ispell.elc files.
(The speller interface built into Emacs originally needed async
subprocesses support, which DJGPP doesn't have; the error message you
quote complains about the function that is used to start an async
subprocess. I used a stupid but effective trick to make Ispell work
in the DJGPP version without async subprocesses. If you want a reason
for a good laugh, search the file ispell.el for "ispell-send-string",
then look around that function to see how it works.)
> I have tried to find in the emacs and/or ispell documentation a clue to
> the problem, but have had no success so far.
Did you look in the "MS-DOS" chapter in the Emacs on-line manual? It
clearly says that spelling doesn't work. As I explained above, this
is not true in the latest release, but at least the manual does
mention this aspect of Emacs operation in the DJGPP version.
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