This patch changes slime-read-swank-port to take the file from which to read the port as an argument since it seems like that might be a handy function to have available so that after you've started a server with (swank:start-server file ...) you can get the port easily. -Peter --- slime.el.orig 2010-08-31 20:49:39.000000000 -0700 +++ slime.el 2010-08-31 20:49:59.000000000 -0700 @@ -1366,7 +1366,7 @@ (cond ((and (file-exists-p file) (> (nth 7 (file-attributes file)) 0)) ; file size (slime-cancel-connect-retry-timer) - (let ((port (slime-read-swank-port)) + (let ((port (slime-read-swank-port file)) (args (slime-inferior-lisp-args process))) (slime-delete-swank-port-file 'message) (let ((c (slime-connect slime-lisp-host port @@ -1406,11 +1406,11 @@ (cancel-timer slime-connect-retry-timer) (setq slime-connect-retry-timer nil))) -(defun slime-read-swank-port () - "Read the Swank server port number from the `slime-swank-port-file'." +(defun slime-read-swank-port (file) + "Read the Swank server port number from `file'." (save-excursion (with-temp-buffer - (insert-file-contents (slime-swank-port-file)) + (insert-file-contents file) (goto-char (point-min)) (let ((port (read (current-buffer)))) (assert (integerp port)) -- Peter Seibel http://www.codequarterly.com/