4.2 Using the delivery tools effectively

This section gives some useful tips that should speed the delivery process up and make mistakes less likely.

4.2.1 Saving the image before attempting delivery

If starting LispWorks and loading your application takes a significant amount of time, you can cut down on this startup time by saving a copy of the image when the compiled application and library code has been loaded. Use save-image (see the LispWorks® User Guide and Reference Manual) to do this. You then have an image that is "ready to go" for delivery as soon as it is started up.

Note: Before and after saving the image, it is a good idea to check that the application still works exactly as it did running on top of the LispWorks development environment.

4.2.2 Delivering the application in memory

You can save time when experimenting with delivery parameters by delivering the application in memory rather than saving it to disk.

If the deliver keyword :in-memory-delivery is non-nil, the delivered image is not saved to disk, but instead starts up automatically after the delivery operations are complete.

For example, a good early test is:

(deliver 'run
         "the-application"
         0
         :in-memory-delivery t)

Note: The image exits as soon as the application terminates.