On 28 Nov 2024, at 19:10, Joseph Mingrone wrote:
> Hello Robert,
>
> Your description of what we are trying to accomplish is accurate. In short,
> we aim to:
>
> - Use existing binaries when they are installed as OS packages.
> - Allow things to work as expected when those binaries are not installed,
> i.e., write binaries to the user's cache.
>
> Your suggestion to write configuration files along with the packages to
> control output translation seems like a good approach. That is, when a user
> installs the cl-alexandria-sbcl package, we could write
> ${PREFIX}/etc/common-lisp/asdf-output-translations.conf.d/10-cl-alexandria-sbcl.conf.
> Without that package installed, I believe the default behaviour - writing
> to the user's cache - works. I'm working on implementing this approach but
> have encountered hurdles:
>
> 1. Custom Configuration Directory
>
> Our packages should only write under ${PREIX} (typically /usr/local/). Is it
> possible to tell ASDF to read from
> /usr/local/etc/common-lisp/asdf-output-translations.conf.d instead of
> /etc/common-lisp/asdf-output-translations.conf.d? Ideally, we could do this
> from our asdf-init.lisp. I notice that #:system-output-translations-pathname
> is exported. Could it be used for this purpose?
That's a function binding, so no, it cannot. I think you *could* change the
function definition of `system-config-pathnames` to change *all* ASDF
configuration locations from `/etc/` to `/usr/local/etc/`. I do not know
enough about how FreeBSD works to know if this is OK for your use case. I'm
afraid that I don't understand how XDG works, either: that was Faré's addition.
The API does not look to me to be able to set a special configuration directory
for only a specific kind of configuration (such as only for output translations
and not for source-finding).
>
> 2. Configuration Error
>
> I manually created a test configuration file at
> /etc/common-lisp/asdf-output-translations.conf.d/10-asdf-sbcl.conf, with this
> DSL:
>
> % cat /etc/common-lisp/asdf-output-translations.conf.d/10-asdf-sbcl.conf
> (:output-translations
> :inherit-configuration
> ("/usr/local/lib/common-lisp/asdf/**/"
> "/usr/local/lib/common-lisp/asdf/sbclfasl/**/"))
>
> However, ASDF reports an error:
>
> % sbcl
> This is SBCL 2.4.10, an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp.
> More information about SBCL is available at <http://www.sbcl.org/> .
>
> SBCL is free software, provided as is, with absolutely no warranty.
> It is mostly in the public domain; some portions are provided under
> BSD-style licenses. See the CREDITS and COPYING files in the
> distribution for more information.
> ;;; loading #P"/usr/local/lib/common-lisp/asdf/sbclfasl/build/asdf.fasl"
> * (asdf:load-system :foo)
>
> debugger invoked on a ASDF/OUTPUT-TRANSLATIONS:INVALID-OUTPUT-TRANSLATION in
> thread
> #<THREAD tid=103125 "main thread" RUNNING {1103F50093}>:
> Invalid asdf output-translation
> (:OUTPUT-TRANSLATIONS :INHERIT-CONFIGURATION
> ("/usr/local/lib/common-lisp/asdf/**/"
> "/usr/local/lib/common-lisp/asdf/sbclfasl/**/"))
> in #P"/etc/common-lisp/asdf-output-translations.conf.d/10-asdf-sbcl.conf"
> (will be skipped)
>
> Do you know what's wrong with this DSL?
I do not. Do you have a backtrace? I suspect the problem is the use of "**",
but I'm not sure. The manual states that
```
DIRECTORY-DESIGNATOR :=
NIL | ; As source: skip this entry. As destination: same as source
T | ; as source matches anything, as destination
; maps pathname to itself.
ABSOLUTE-COMPONENT-DESIGNATOR ; same as in the source-registry language
```
And going to the page for the source registry DSL:
```
ABSOLUTE-COMPONENT-DESIGNATOR :=
(ABSOLUTE-COMPONENT-DESIGNATOR RELATIVE-COMPONENT-DESIGNATOR ...) |
STRING |
;; namestring (better be absolute or bust, directory assumed where
;; applicable). In output-translations, directory is assumed and
;; **/*.*.* added if it's last. On MCL, a MacOSX-style POSIX
;; namestring (for MacOS9 style, use #p"..."); Note that none of the
;; above applies to strings used in *central-registry*, which
;; doesn't use this DSL: they are processed as normal namestrings.
;; however, you can compute what you put in the *central-registry*
;; based on the results of say
;; (asdf::resolve-location "/Users/fare/cl/cl-foo/")
PATHNAME |
;; pathname (better be an absolute path, or bust)
;; In output-translations, unless followed by relative components,
;; it better have appropriate wildcards, as in **/*.*.*
:HOME | ; designates the user-homedir-pathname ~/
:USER-CACHE | ; designates the default location for the user cache
:HERE |
;; designates the location of the configuration file
;; (or *default-pathname-defaults*, if invoked interactively)
:ROOT
;; magic, for output-translations source only: paths that are relative
;; to the root of the source host and device
```
Possibly you need a trailing `*.*.*`?
Also, as I look at this, do you want your new output translations to shadow old
ones? In that case you should put `:inherit-configuration` last instead of
first.
>
> 3. Distinguishing Lisp Implementations
>
> This approach will only work if we can distinguish the running Lisp
> implementation. The manual mentions, "You may use #+features to customize
> the configuration file." Can we use something like #+sbcl in the .conf files
> to conditionally set up the output translations for SBCL?
Honestly, I don't know. But when I look at the source for
`parse-output-translations-string`, it looks like it's a string parser, and
does not use `read`, in which case reader macros would not work.
But TBH I cannot see how the
How about starting up a lisp with `process-output-translations` and
`parse-output-translations-string` traced and posting the results here. Note
that this is one of the things I don't like about the way that ASDF uses
configuration files: it's hard to load ASDF and configure it for debugging
*before* it sees its configuration files. You could actually edit the ASDF
source to inject the tracing (or `format` statements), of course. (I have been
meaning to add some switch to startup so that one can debug its initialization,
but have not had the time.)
>
> Thank you for your time and insight.
>
> Kind regards,
> Joe
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