Re: scheme to C

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: Bernard Urban <address@hidden>
   Date: 07 Oct 2002 10:39:49 +0200

   (I catch this mail in the middle of a vacation, so do not expect a
   fast answer if interested in the 1.4.1 sources.)

great news -- i'm glad to be mistaken about hobbit availability for
guile!  could you post a pointer to the source?[1]  i am interested in
finalizing "hobbit as backend for compiled modules" methodology for
integration into a guile 1.4.x (x > 1) release.  the plan is initially
to support command-line operation:

   guile-tools modtool compile [options] file.scm [...]

          this creates a "compiled module bundle" (exact term to be
          decided) comprising some top-level config file and the real
          guts in a .modules subdir.  the model here is libtool and it's
          ".la pointing to actual bunch of files/symlinks in .libs"
          approach.

          options can include "--name MODULE" (for those files
          that do not have a define-module form), "--init FUNC" (to
          override the defaultly constructed init func name), 
               
   guile-tools modtool install BUNDLE DIR

          again we use libtool for inspiration here.  installation
          frobs the top-level config and copies things into place.

   guile-tools modtool installcheck DIR/BUNDLE [TEST ...]

          now we take inspiration from automake.  supporting "check" may
          also be possible -- that's a more difficult problem but not
          unsolvable (solving it allows us to move to the second phase:
          compiler use from repl via "compile-object" or the like).  the
          installcheck runs the tests (if specified) after having loaded
          the module (the degenerate test case).

a sticking point w/ full-circle methodology has been where to install
binary files so that the module system can find them, and yet still
conform to the common practice of separating arch-independent files from
arch-dependent ones.  guile 1.4.1.91 (http://www.glug.org/tmp/2002-10/)
adds $pkglibdir/$guileversion to %load-path:

   $ guile -c '(for-each write-line %load-path)'
   /home/ttn/local/share/guile/site
   /home/ttn/local/share/guile/1.4.1.91
   /home/ttn/local/share/guile
   /home/ttn/local/lib/guile/1.4.1.91           ;; (here)
   .

this allows librgx (nee librx) to be loaded as "(modules rgx)" w/o need
for a scheme wrapper.  although the same can be used for hobbit-compiled
modules, i'd like to learn about your installation/use discipline to see
how this can be improved.  perhaps per-directory registries (a la the
PLUGIN files of yore) are the way to go...

thi


[1] to be mirrored in http://www.glug.org/alt/ -- let me know if
    you have any objections to that location.