Re: gnuplot vs. emacs' compile command

[David Kastrup]

Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de> writes:

> Hello to bug-emacs and the gnuplot developers,
> 
> as reportedly requested by RMS, here's some more background
> information about the problem found by a gnuplot user, Dan Jacobson,
> in interacting with emacs.
> 
> In the essence, M-x compile apparently has problems coping with the
> way gnuplot generates X11 graphs that survive the termination of the
> main program (gnuplot -persist).  I'm not quite sure that's even
> something the user should have been trying to do, but let's set that
> aside for the moment.
> 
> The simplest way found so far to reproduce the problem is to have a
> shell script file:
> 
> --- gpaction ---
> gnuplot -persist <<EOS
>  plot x
> EOS
> ---- end ---

Another possibility is something like putting

  xdvi test &

into such a file.  Now the problem is that if we kill an Emacs
process, we don't want anybody writing uncontrolledly around in it,
but closing our end of the I/O should be sufficient.  If there are
too many processes detaching themselves improperly, we might run out
of ptys at some time.

The only asynchronous processes that Emacs at the moment can leave
alone safely are those started with call-process and a buffer
argument of 0.

Definitely a nuisance.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum