[asdf-devel] Change in the way ASDF performs a plan? Or :force semantics?

[Robert Goldman]

I was having a case where some package wrangling in one of our systems behaved
differently with new ASDF than with the ASDF 2 that ships with ACL.

It seemed like there was an :AFTER method on one of my modules that simply
wasn't being called.

I took my usual resort and did

(TRACE ASDF:PERFORM).

I was very surprised to see that my 

(asdf:load-system "circa-csm" :force t) 

resulted in only four calls to perform, and all of them had to do with ASDF:

CL-USER> (asdf:load-system "circa-csm" :force t)
; Loading /Users/rpg/lisp/asdf/asdf.asd
; Loading /Users/rpg/lisp/asdf/asdf-driver.asd
 0[7]: (ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:PREPARE-OP >
                            #<ASDF/SYSTEM:SYSTEM "asdf">)
 0* (MULTIPLE-VALUE-PROG1 (PROGN #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   :BEFORE
                                   (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>
                                 #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   (ASDF/LISP-ACTION:PREPARE-OP
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
      #<STANDARD-METHOD ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM :AFTER
        (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
 0[7]: returned NIL
 0[7]: (ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:PREPARE-OP >
                            #<ASDF/COMPONENT:MODULE "asdf" "build">)
 0* (MULTIPLE-VALUE-PROG1 (PROGN #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   :BEFORE
                                   (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>
                                 #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   (ASDF/LISP-ACTION:PREPARE-OP
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
      #<STANDARD-METHOD ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM :AFTER
        (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
 0[7]: returned NIL
 0[7]: (ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:PREPARE-OP >
                            #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:CL-SOURCE-FILE
                              "asdf" "build" "asdf">)
 0* (MULTIPLE-VALUE-PROG1 (PROGN #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   :BEFORE
                                   (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>
                                 #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   (ASDF/LISP-ACTION:PREPARE-OP
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
      #<STANDARD-METHOD ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM :AFTER
        (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
 0[7]: returned NIL
 0[7]: (ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:LOAD-OP >
                            #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:CL-SOURCE-FILE
                              "asdf" "build" "asdf">)
 0* (MULTIPLE-VALUE-PROG1 (PROGN #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   :BEFORE
                                   (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION
                                    ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>
                                 #<STANDARD-METHOD
                                   ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM
                                   (ASDF/LISP-ACTION:LOAD-OP
                                    ASDF/LISP-ACTION:CL-SOURCE-FILE)>)
      #<STANDARD-METHOD ASDF/ACTION:PERFORM :AFTER
        (ASDF/OPERATION:OPERATION ASDF/COMPONENT:COMPONENT)>)
; Fast loading
;    /Users/rpg/.cache/common-lisp/acl-8.2-macosx-x64/Users/rpg/lisp/asdf/build/asdf.fasl
 0[7]: returned T

;;; from here on down there's lots of loading, but no recompilation (as I
;;; expected from :force t) and no calls to PERFORM.  
; Fast loading
;    /Users/rpg/.cache/common-lisp/acl-8.2-macosx-x64/Users/rpg/circa/code/csm/musliner-tools.fasl
; Fast loading
;    /Users/rpg/.cache/common-lisp/acl-8.2-macosx-x64/Users/rpg/circa/code/csm/stochastic.fasl

Or -- oh, wait! Did the recompilation of ASDF killed the tracing?

If so, I don't think that :force t should be causing ASDF itself to rebuild.  I
understand why it's a dependency, but this shows why it's inappropriate:
rebuilding asdf destroys our ability to inspect its behavior.

Oh, and maybe it's also killing the PERFORM :after method in my system definition?

I'd suggest :force t should stop before it gets to ASDF itself.  Maybe we need
to add :force :omg to do that! ;-)

Cheers,
r