Setting environment variables

[Mark Evenson]

> On May 2, 2023, at 21:16, Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
[…]
> 
> It's true that I use aio. TBH I've never understood the point of separating the contribs from the base. File size isn't an issue any more. What's the upside of splitting them apart? A bit of extra time indexing the classes in the jar?

From <https://github.com/armedbear/abcl/blob/master/doc/packaging-abcl.org>:

We create two separate jar artifacts in order to:
    • To place an upper bound of size of abcl.jar regardless of what we package in abcl-contrib.jar.
    • Clearly mark which parts of the code-base are covered under GPLv2+classpath from those that may have other licensing terms. By making the loading of “contrib” a dynamic operation, we defer possible infringement to the User who redistributes the resulting jar artifact.

> 
> Conceptually, we should somehow place the implementation of setting environment variables via the C syscall as a patch in the contrib system in a new contrib called (?) USE-POSIX-SYSCALLS (terrible name, please change).  Such a new contrib would a) depend on 
>  JNA and b) have to be used via 
> 
>    (asdf:make :use-posix-syscalls)
> 
> I don't know what asdf:make does. I tried it in a situation (autoloading the java parser when #1 was used the first time) where I expected it to load a system and it didn't seem to. 

ASDF:MAKE is a shorter synonym for ASDF:LOAD-SYSTEM as far as I understand things.  

> Would it be sufficient to do something like:
> 
> (defun ensure-jna-loaded ()
>   (or *jna-loaded*
>       (progn
>         (when (not (ignore-errors (find-java-class 'jna.nativelibrary)))
>           (require 'abcl-asdf)
>           (add-to-classpath (funcall (intern "RESOLVE" 'abcl-asdf "net.java.dev.jna/jna/LATEST")))
>           (setq *jna-loaded* t)))))

Probably not:  you really want to depend on the ASDF encapsulation of JNA in 'contrib/mvn/jna.asd’, not the presence of yet another special (“*jna-loaded*”).    Since you are requiring ABCL-ASDF:RESOLVE to be present, you can make the assumption that both ASDF and ABCL-CONTRIB have been successfully REQUIREd.

[…]

> Bottom line is that I don't know how to package this under whatever the assumptions are when not using abcl-aio

Alright.  I will try to take a stab at this after I figure out the way forward with the Gray streams/SLIME imbroglio. 

-- 
"A screaming comes across the sky.  It has happened before but there is nothing 
to compare to it now."