start-process-shell-command: Spawning child process: invalid argument

[Andrew]

Having trouble setting up Clojure/Emacs on Windows again. Earlier Mark Rathwell helped me by pointing out a recipe for Windows that resolved an issue with sh. After having the setup work for a while, I botched something while trying to upgrade clojure-mode. So I tried to start from scratch using the same recipe and now I see this when I try M-x clojure-jack-in

start-process-shell-command: Spawning child process: invalid argument

Other notes:

• The value of inferior-lisp-program is "lein repl".
  
• If I start eshell and type lein repl, I see a repl start up.
  
• If I start eshell and type sh and answer the prompt with lein repl, I also see a repl start up.
• lein is in my windows path
• c:/emacs and c:/emacs/bin are both in my path so sh.bat can be found
  
• the swank-clojure 1.3.3 plugin is installed

How do I find out what the "invalid argument" is?

[Mark Rathwell]

Andrew,

I don't have access to a Windows machine at the moment, but
sidestepping clojure-jack-in for a minute, does using 'lein swank' and
M-x slime-connect work? (in an eshell buffer that is in the project
directory, run 'lein swank', that should start a swank server on port
4005, then M-x slime-connect should connect you and give you a repl).

- Mark

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[Andrew]

The attempt revealed the need to install the slime package. After that, the two commands succeed. However, M-x clojure-jack-in still fails in a fresh emacs session with the same error.

[Mark Rathwell]

I think there is some path issue in your setup between Cygwin and
Windows that will take some work to diagnose. You might try
installing everything from scratch, or maybe try a Linux vm with
VirtualBox (free) or VMWare. Either way, you can use lein swank and
slime-connect in the meantime.

[Andrew]

Thanks.... Do I need Cygwin at all for Clojure work on Windows/Emacs/Swank/clojure-mode/lein? Or can I remove Cygwin from my machine?

And are these two functionally equivalent?

• clojure-jack-in
  
• lein swank and slime-connect
  

[Mark Rathwell]

> Do I need Cygwin at all for Clojure work on
> Windows/Emacs/Swank/clojure-mode/lein?

I don't think so. If lein.bat is on your path and is working, and if
emacs and clojure-mode are working, that's really all you need. There
are utilities and tools out there that you may want to use at some
point, though, that do assume a unixy environment.

> And are these two functionally equivalent?
> clojure-jack-in
> lein swank and slime-connect

Basically, yes. They both start a swank server, connect emacs to it,
and give you a repl. clojure-jack-in is meant to simplify that
process and hide any complexity.

[Phil Hagelberg]

If you have installed the right versions of slime and slime-repl
manually then they should be equivalent.

-Phil

[Stathis Sideris]

I've had this problem before when emacs was trying to start an external executable whose path contained spaces. Are you running Windows by any chance? Is your Java under "Program Files"? Try moving it to a space free path like "C:\development\tools\".

On Wednesday, 12 December 2012 12:20:46 UTC, Myrna van de Burgwal wrote:

I also have a problem when I type in 'M-x slime' in Emacs. It causes the same error (spawning child process: invalid argument).

I assume I installed slime correctly and I rewrote ~/.emacs.

What could ben the problem?