FunctionPackage: systemToCDocOverviewCGDocRelNotesFAQIndexPermutedIndex
Allegro CL version 8.2
Unrevised from 8.1 to 8.2.
8.1 version

update-allegro

Arguments: &key documentation-only destination-directory except-patches force host list patches platform verbose version (keep-old-patches t) proxy proxy-basic-authorization

Updating using update.exe to download patches

update.exe, when given the argument -u, will also download available patches and updates and also rebuild images. The Start | Programs | Allegro CL menu has an entry (if you have a Start menu) for Rebuild images which runs update.exe with no arguments and a Rebuild images (download new updates first) menu item. It runs update.exe with the -u argument so updates and patches are downloaded.

update.exe also takes -p and -P arguments to deal with proxies when downloading updates. These do the following:

On Windows, you may have to run update.exe as administrator.

Description of sys:update-allegro

This function contacts the Franz Inc. website and downloads the patches appropriate for your platform (computer type) and version of Allegro CL. In order to work, the computer running Allegro CL must be able to make an FTP connection to the internet. If the connection is not made for any reason, update-allegro signals an error.

On Windows using the IDE, the Download Patches dialog can be used to call this function.

Calling this function with no arguments will download and install all patches.

If you have AllegroCache or AllegroGraph installed, update-allegro will tell you if there are newer versions available (but it does not itself download these newer versions).

Unless the force argument is true, a patch file is not downloaded if the size and CRC (checksum) of an existing local file with the same name and location is the same as the remote file (but this does not cause an error or prevent downloading of other files).

Fasl file (destined for the update/ and various other directories), shared library (UNIX), and Dynamically Linked Library (DLL) patches are all handled by sys:update-allegro. On Windows, because "in use" files cannot be replaced, you will be asked to reboot your computer to finish the update process. Without rebooting, you will not see the patched DLL.

The keyword arguments to sys:update-allegro are as follows:

Note on using proxies

Users that surf through an http proxy (usually as a security measure on sites with firewalls) can specify the proxy name and port number using the proxy keyword argument, and, if necessary, a username and password using the proxy-basic-authorization keyword argument. Suppose the proxy is www.foo.com and it uses port 8000, then such users would specify the sys:update-allegro form like this (specifying other arguments as desired, of course):

(sys:update-allegro :proxy "www.foo.com:8000")

If a username and a password is also, needed, they can be specified like this (replacing "username" and "password" with the actual strings and also specifying other arguments as desired):

(sys:update-allegro :proxy "www.foo.com:8000" 
                    :proxy-basic-authorization (cons "username" "password")
  )

or, using the second allowable format for proxy-basic-authorization:

(sys:update-allegro :proxy "www.foo.com:8000" 
                    :proxy-basic-authorization (cons "username:password")
  )

Without proxy specified, sys:update-allegro will try and contact franz.com directly. In the case where users are using a proxy, that would not work. The failure symptom would be that sys:update-allegro would just hang and finally time out.

Examples:

To download all available patches for your platform and version, do:

(sys:update-allegro)

If you want all patches except update/p2a001.001, then do this:

(sys:update-allegro :except-patches
'("update/p2a001.001"))

If you want a list of patches that would be downloaded but do not want to download anything, then do this:

(sys:update-allegro :list t)

After downloading is complete

It is important that you follow the instructions given to you by sys:update-allegro. It may ask you to rebuild your images or, on Windows only, to reboot your machine. If you do not follow the instructions, the update procedure will not be complete.

On Windows, when a reboot is necessary, sys:update-allegro displays a dialog asking you if you want to reboot immediately, and performs the reboot if you answer `yes'. Even if you do not reboot immediately, you should reboot before using Allegro CL further.

Patches are described in section Patches and updates of introduction.htm. The sections after that one also contain information about patches.


Copyright (c) 1998-2016, Franz Inc. Oakland, CA., USA. All rights reserved.
This page was not revised from the 8.1 page.
Created 2010.1.21.

ToCDocOverviewCGDocRelNotesFAQIndexPermutedIndex
Allegro CL version 8.2
Unrevised from 8.1 to 8.2.
8.1 version