[asdf-devel] compile-with-nicknames

[Robert Goldman]

On 10/16/11 Oct 16 -4:52 PM, Faré wrote:
> 2011/10/16 Gábor Balázs <gabalz at gmail.com>:
>> But there would be a nicer way, and this is the proposal. What about a new
>> asdf option (eg :compile-with-nicknames), which could look like something
>> this?
>>
>> (defsystem my-system
>>   :depends-on ("package-1" "package-2" "package-3" ...)
>>   :compile-with-nicknames (("package-1" "pckg-1")
>>                            ("package-3" "pckg-3"))
>>   :components (...))
>>
>> I think this approach nicely works in a "clear" environment for non-parallel
>> compilation when there are no insane nickname requests.
>> The "clear" environment assumption can be relaxed to say that the user
>> hasn't defined any nicknames which causes collisions for any necessary
>> compilations.
>>
>> Or if you know a better way to handle this problem, I would be happy to hear
>> about that...

I think there is a better way to solve this problem, but it is an ASDF3 method.
The basic idea is as follows:

1.  ASDF currently works by developing a LINEAR plan for performing an
operation.  Here's an example:

CL-USER> (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :murphy-ltk-demo)
#<ASDF:LOAD-OP NIL @ #x1000d42f82>
((#<ASDF:LOAD-OP NIL @ #x1000d57312>
  . #<ASDF:CL-SOURCE-FILE "ltk" "ltk">)
 (#<ASDF:LOAD-OP NIL @ #x1000d57312> . #<ASDF:SYSTEM "ltk">)
 (#<ASDF:LOAD-OP NIL @ #x1000d62f32>
  . #<ASDF:CL-SOURCE-FILE "murphy-ltk-demo" "package">)
 (#<ASDF:COMPILE-OP NIL @ #x1000d62f52>
  . #<ASDF:CL-SOURCE-FILE "murphy-ltk-demo" "ltk-demo">)
 (#<ASDF:COMPILE-OP NIL @ #x1000d62f52>
  . #<ASDF:SYSTEM "murphy-ltk-demo">)
 (#<ASDF:LOAD-OP NIL @ #x1000d42f82>
  . #<ASDF:CL-SOURCE-FILE "murphy-ltk-demo" "ltk-demo">)
 (#<ASDF:LOAD-OP NIL @ #x1000d42f82>
  . #<ASDF:SYSTEM "murphy-ltk-demo">))

Inspecting this plan reveals the problem: the operation COMPILE-OP on
#<ASDF:SYSTEM "murphy-ltk-demo"> is not done AROUND the compilation operations
on the component files, but AFTER them.

2.  A possible solution would be to restructure the plans so that they are
TREE-SHAPED, instead of linear.  So that there would be an operation that
CONTAINS the compile-ops of the individual systems.

Then, instead of the "plan interpreter" component of ASDF just being a MAP, it
would be a tree-mapper.

I think that this is in some sense The Right Thing.  The only problem is that
the LOAD-OP is not "convex" in some sense.  Instead, there is loading of files
done *during* the compilation.  So if we were to do this, wrapping something
around the LOAD-OP might have counterintuitive results.

Note also that I believe that we would have to keep the original, odd semantics
of the operations on systems, and add a new operation, for backwards
compatibility.  So we might have COMPILE-COMPONENT-OP or something.

Cheers,
r

>>
> Dear Gábor,
> 
> you describe a common problem and a shared frustration of many CL developers.
> However, the problem is not limited to package nicknames, and instead
> I would prefer something more general:
> the ability to wrap something around compilation,
> essentially an advice around compile-file*.
> I recently added this feature to xcvb, so that it may compile ironclad,
> that uses such a wrapper (an :around method on perform)
> to bind the *readtable* and muffle some warnings around compilation.
> 
> And so, I propose something more like:
> 
> (defun call-with-my-nicknames (thunk)
>   (with-package-nicknames
>     (("package-1" "pckg-1")
>      ("package-3" "pckg-3"))
>     (funcall thunk)))
> 
> (defsystem my-system
>   :depends-on ("system-1" "system-2" "system-3" ...)
>   :around-compile call-with-my-nicknames
>   :components (...))
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> Of course, you'd have to use ASDF 2.018 or later for that.
> Or maybe it's time to call it ASDF 2.18 instead?
> 
> —♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org
> 
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