[asdf-devel] poor error reporting in ASDF

[Cyrus Harmon]

Dear ASDF developers,

While trying to load a project of mine that depends on alexandria on a box that didn't have alexandria installed, I got the attached error message. It would be nice if there were better reporting letting one know that the dependency was not satisfied.

thanks,

Cyrus


There is no applicable method for the generic function
  #<STANDARD-GENERIC-FUNCTION ASDF:COMPONENT-NAME (1)>
when called with arguments
  (#:ALEXANDRIA).
   [Condition of type SIMPLE-ERROR]

Restarts:
 0: [RETRY] Retry calling the generic function.
 1: [ABORT] Return to sldb level 1.
 2: [RETRY] Retry SLIME REPL evaluation request.
 3: [*ABORT] Return to SLIME's top level.
 4: [TERMINATE-THREAD] Terminate this thread (#<THREAD "repl-thread" RUNNING {1002FA0451}>)

Backtrace:
  0: (    )
  1: (SB-PCL::CALL-NO-APPLICABLE-METHOD  )
  2: (ASDF::COMPONENT-FIND-PATH )
  3: ( )
  4: ( )
  5: (SB-IMPL::STRINGIFY-OBJECT )
  6: (PRINC-TO-STRING )
  7: (SWANK::FORMAT-RESTARTS-FOR-EMACS)
  8: (SWANK:DEBUGGER-INFO-FOR-EMACS 0 20)
  9: (SWANK::CALL-WITH-BINDINGS  )
 10: (SWANK::SLDB-LOOP 1)
 11: ( )
 12: (SWANK::DEBUG-IN-EMACS )
 13: (SWANK:INVOKE-SLIME-DEBUGGER )
 14: (SWANK-BACKEND::CALL-WITH-BREAK-HOOK  )
 15: (  )
 16: (SWANK:SWANK-DEBUGGER-HOOK  )
 17: (SB-DEBUG::RUN-HOOK *DEBUGGER-HOOK* )
 18: (INVOKE-DEBUGGER )
 19: (ERROR ASDF:MISSING-DEPENDENCY :REQUIRED-BY  :REQUIRES )
 20: (ASDF::%DO-ONE-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 21: (ASDF::DO-ONE-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 22: ( ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 23: (ASDF::DO-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP )
 24: (     )
 25: (ASDF::DO-ONE-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 26: ( ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 27: (ASDF::DO-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP )
 28: (     )
 29: (ASDF::DO-ONE-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 30: ( ASDF:COMPILE-OP  NIL)
 31: (ASDF::DO-DEP    ASDF:COMPILE-OP )
 32: (     )
 33: (    )
 34: (   ASDF:LOAD-OP CHEMICL)
...