[asdf-devel] a hair in :pathname specifications

[Faré]

On 12 June 2010 13:45, Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.info> wrote:
> On 6/12/10 Jun 12 -6:37 AM, Faré wrote:
>> Looking at Stelian's recent patches to iolib, I saw that he uses things like:
>>
>> (asdf:defsystem :iolib.syscalls
>>   ...
>>   :pathname #-asdf2 (merge-pathnames "syscalls/" *load-truename*)
>>             #+asdf2 "syscalls/"
>>   ...)
>>
>> This shocked me, as I new (for having been hit badly by the issue at
>> ITA and having read the code) that you can't use (merge-pathnames ...)
>> like that in a component and need #. instead, since there is no EVAL
>> in parse-component-form. ITA used to have lots of #.(merge-pathnames
>> ...) before I implemented / parsing in our local ASDF (now merged into
>> ASDF 2).
>>
>> Well, it turns out that the defsystem macro itself treats :pathname
>> specially and lets that argument be evaluated unlike other arguments
>> and unlike :pathname for other forms. This interacts badly with some
>> code I've written recently that cleans up the way we normalize
>> specified pathnames for components, my code assuming we were always
>> provided a valid specifier.
>>
>> So the question is: what to do?
>>
>> 1- Should I do nothing, thus having more uniform semantics but
>> breaking compatibility with ASDF 1 and requiring users of defsystem to
>> use #. in such occasions?
>>
>> 2- Should I issue an ASDF 2.0 minor release that re-allows pathname
>> evaluation just for defsystem forms (excluding other forms), thus
>> providing better backwards compatibility?
>>
>> 3- Should I issue an ASDF 2.0 minor release that does pathname
>> evaluation inside parse-component-form, thus providing better
>> backwards compatibility AND extending the semantics so that it be more
>> uniform?
>
> I tend to favor leaving things as they are.  I have mixed feelings about
> this.  Evaluating the pathname argument makes sense, but the
> un-orthogonality (suddenly this is different from all the other slots)
> seems undesirable.
>
OK, before I throw it away, here's the patch I won't commit that
implemented the backwards compatibility option 2 from my previous
email.

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: asdf--evaluate-defsystem-pathname.diff
Type: text/x-patch
Size: 782 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.common-lisp.net/pipermail/asdf-devel/attachments/20100612/58df4032/attachment.bin>