Alpage: Alpage Linguistic Processing Chain FAQ

Alpage Linguistic Processing Chain FAQ

List of frequently asked questions about Alpage linguistic processing chain installation and use.

General questions

Where can I find the documentation about the chain ?

Chain documentation (pdf)
If not present in the general documentation above, the documentation for each sofware can be found in README files. (${PREFIX}/src/[software]/)

Where can I find the documentation for alpi?

Alpi's complete documentation is generated from alpi.pl. To read alpi documentation in a terminal, please type:

perldoc alpi.pl

How can I install Alpage Linguistic Processing Chain ?

Please use Alpage Installer (alpi).

Installation (using alpi.pl)

Please check INSTALL file for information about installation. If you encounter problems during installation, you should check the log file alpi.log which is in the same directory as alpi.pl. There should be an error message that will help you find a solution. Most of the time it will be a problem of dependency, so you need to make sure that you have all the tools necessary to run alpi: please check INTALL file.

Where is the processing chain installed ?

The processing chain is installed under <prefix> (default=${HOME}/exportbuild) unless you have specified a different directory using option --prefix.

Where is the log file ?

The log file alpi.log is in the same directory as alpi.pl

Access to the Subversion repository is impossible.

It must be a matter of permissions. Please contact your network administrator regarding the use of Subversion through an internet connection.

"Connection closed by 131.254.249.2, svn: Connection closed unexpectedly"

Connection to the Subversion repository through ssh doesn't work. Please check in the INSTALL file that you have properly set up ssh. In most cases it means that the key was not properly pasted in your GForge profile (the carriage returns must be avoided). If this configuration has just been processed, you should wait until it is taken into account.

"Connecting to ftp.inria.fr... failed: Connection timed out. Giving up."

The FTP connexion is temporarily impossible. Thus, some packages cannot be downloaded. This kind of problem is fixed within minutes or hours.

"makeinfo is missing on your system"

This is a dependency of package DyALog. You need to install package texinfo.

I get the error message "../Compiler/dyalog : commande introuvable"

This usually happens when the .ma files are not more recent than the .pl files in the DyALog sources under the directory Compiler/. alpi is supposed to handle this problem, but it might happen if you have somewhat tried to recompile DyALog manually. cd in the DyALog sources directory (${PREFIX}/src/DyALog) and type

make postsvn
make
make install

Using the linguistic processing chain

When I try to start or stop the server of parsers, I get this error message: "parserd dead but subsys locked"

Remove <vardir>/var/lock/subsys/parserd.

When I use the command callparser, I get this error message: "Parsing error somewhere: pattern match read eof"

It is likely that a Perl module is missing. You need to install all Perl dependencies. You can retrieve the list of Perl modules typing:

./installatoll.pl --dep

When I launch parserd, I get this error message: "[exportbuild]/sbin/parserd_service: line 20: /sbin/consoletype: Aucun fichier ou répertoire de ce type"

This error message occurs on certain operating systems. Do not take it into account. If the server of parser cannot be started, it's probable that there is a lock. Please remove [exportbuild]/var/lock/subsys/parserd.

When I try something like "frmgtel il mange" via Telnet, I get this error message: "Connection closed by foreign host."

It is likely that a Perl module is missing. You need to install all Perl dependencies. You can retrieve the list of Perl modules typing:

./installatoll.pl --dep

When I launch callparser with option -d dep, the analysis succeeds but no graph is displayed.

Please make sure you have at least version 1.12 of GraphViz.

"command display not found"

You need to install package ImageMagick.

Special characters are not displayed correctly in the terminal.

The terminal encoding should be latin1 (ISO 8859-1) to work properly.

The analysis fails when trying any sentence.

If you are trying the processing chain through the server of parsers with a command like:

echo "il mange" | callparser -in - -p 9043

then you should try accessing the server of parsers with telnet:

telnet localhost 9043

then press the return key twice, and:

frmgtel il mange

If there is no change, then try to use the processing chain directly:

echo "il mange" | easy.pl | tig_parser <prefix>/share/frmg/small_header.tag - -forest

Please contact us if none of these commands succeed.

"Can't locate TAG.pm in @INC"

You need to set up the environment variables:

source <prefix>/sbin/setenv.sh

"command not found"

You need to set up the environment variables:

source <prefix>/sbin/setenv.sh