Hi all,
today, I tried to sync the ghc-ndp branch with head. Again, I'll
describe the problems I've encountered in the hope that it will be helpful.
First, I tried
darcs pull http://darcs.haskell.org/ghc
./darcs-all pull
make distclean
<build as usual>
This failed with
Registering filepath-1.0...
Reading package info from "dist/inplace-pkg-config" ... done.
ghc-pkg: dependency directory-1.0 doesn't exist (use --force to override)
Ok, make distclean hasn't been working properly for quite some time so I
thought I'd get a fresh tree. After fixing (sort of) a problem with the
ghc-ndp repository, I tried compiling it:
../../compiler/stage1/ghc-inplace -package-name base-2.1
-hide-all-packages -split-objs -i -idist/build/autogen -idist/build -i.
-Idist/build -Iinclude -I../../includes -I../../rts -#include "HsBase.h"
-odir dist/build -hidir dist/build -package rts-1.0 -O -fglasgow-exts
-package-name base -cpp -idist/build -H16m -O -O -Rghc-timing
-fgenerics -c GHC/Base.lhs -o dist/build/GHC/Base.o -ohi
dist/build/GHC/Base.hi
/tmp/ghc3117_0/ghc3117_0.split__178.s:unknown:missing indirect symbols
for section (__TEXT,__symbol_stub)
This is because I forgot to copy my build.mk which turns off SPLIT_OBJS
from my old tree. I didn't know that SPLIT_OBJS doesn't work on OS X,
though. Anyway, after fixing this and syncing with head, I get:
../../compiler/stage1/ghc-inplace -package-name base-2.1
-hide-all-packages -split-objs -i -idist/build/autogen -idist/build -i.
-Idist/build -Iinclude -I../../includes -I../../rts -#include "HsBase.h"
-odir dist/build -hidir dist/build -package rts-1.0 -O -fglasgow-exts
-package-name base -cpp -idist/build -H16m -O -O -Rghc-timing
-fgenerics -c GHC/Base.lhs -o dist/build/GHC/Base.o -ohi
dist/build/GHC/Base.hi
/tmp/ghc4105_0/ghc4105_0.split__1.s:6:0: Unknown pseudo-op: .type
/tmp/ghc4105_0/ghc4105_0.split__1.s:6:0:
Rest of line ignored. 1st junk character valued 95 (_).
/tmp/ghc4105_0/ghc4105_0.split__1.s:17:0: Unknown pseudo-op: .type
/tmp/ghc4105_0/ghc4105_0.split__1.s:17:0:
Rest of line ignored. 1st junk character valued 95 (_).
I assume the OS X assembler doesn't understand .type directives. On the
mailing list, I find this patch which hasn't been applied to head yet:
Sat Jun 30 10:22:43 CEST 2007 Clemens Fruhwirth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* Restrict .type directives to Linux targets only
Alas, darcs apply doesn't work:
darcs: Cannot apply this patch bundle, this is a "--partial repository
We don't have the following patch:
Tue May 1 04:56:10 EST 2007 Alec Berryman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* Build arrows library if available
arrows is the only library in libraries/extra-packages not built when
present
In fact, this missing patch was precisely the problem we (Manuel,
rather) tried to fix in the ghc-ndp repo earlier. Alas, it seems that
ghc-ndp simply inherited this from head as I get the same error if I try
to darcs apply Clemens' patch to it, too. Alec's patch does appear in
darcs changes, though.
Anyway, after manually changing PprMach.hs such that it doesn't spit out
.type directives any more, I finally get a working build.
A summary:
1. Something seems to be not quite right with the head repository.
Pulling from head and then pushing to ghc-ndp (which has been recreated
only last week) used to fail complaining about the one missing patch
before Manuel checkpointed it. I get the exact same failure when I darcs
apply Clemens' patch to head.
2. SPLIT_OBJS doesn't seem to work on OS X. Could it perhaps only be
turned on on architectures which support it (IIRC, there were other
architectures which had problems with it).
2. Head doesn't build on Mac OS for me without Clemens' last patch.
Perhaps the dynamic linking stuff could be done in a branch as it is
bound to be quite destabilising?
3. make distclean still doesn't work properly. This is a pain, although
a bearable one.
4. Trying to maintain a branch is still frustrating. I've just spend 4
hours (and had to rebuild ghc 6 or 7 times) trying to sync ghc-ndp with
head. Even worse, in the last couple of months, we would have problems
with building head itself more often than not. I think we lost *weeks*
trying to work around this. IMO, this is a problem with the current
development process. From my gcc hacking days I remember that the gcc
maintainers would only accept patches if they passed the testsuite on at
least two architectures. This worked wonders for the stability of
gcc-head. I'd like to propose a similar policy for ghc, at least for
patches which change OS-specific stuff (it's probably sufficient to test
changes to the typechecker, simplifier etc. on just one architecture).
Alternatively, could at least vastly destabilising changes (which the
dynamic linking stuff is bound to be) be done in a branch? Concurrent
development doesn't really work otherwise.
Sorry for sounding so frustrated but I really seem to spend more time on
trying to get ghc to compile than doing actual NDP work.
Roman
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