-------- Original Message -------- Subject: ABCL packaging ASDF system in jars (was Re: Disabling "built-in" output translation) Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 21:47:07 +0200 From: Mark Evenson evenson-VmQCmMdMyN0AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org To: asdf-devel-F1HGIaG5STRyXAeb93iumQ@public.gmane.org CC: Armed Bear armedbear-devel-F1HGIaG5STRyXAeb93iumQ@public.gmane.org Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.asdf.devel References: iqtmt0$7ec$1@dough.gmane.org BANLkTin8YBewU_=NnwOB53sxsn=rkqsOxA@mail.gmail.com

On 5/17/11 3:28 PM, Faré wrote: […]

Hope this helps.

I'm gonna need a bit more time to chew over the ASDF code, but thanks for the general direction. I must confess that in spite of the reasonable looking documentation and having contributed the function translation code to ASDF, its whole output translation API has never really gelled in my understanding as a totality. Maybe I can contribute some examples to the texinfo file when the fuzz in my understanding resolves a bit.

BTW, for cl-launch and XCVB, I indeed am looking for a way to create bundles from compiled stuff. How do I create a jar from ABCL and a set of lisp files, precompiled or not?

A reasonable packaging mechanism for ABCL plus "compiled stuff" composed of ASDF system definitions that works well in a Java ecosystem is precisely the itch I'm in the process of scratching for ABCL right now. The base unit of packaging in Java is the jar file, which is nothing more than a ZIP archive with (possibly) some Java-the-language specific metadata. Currently, one can package an ASDF definition in a jar file, push the location of the asd file into ASDF:*CENTRAL-REGISTRY* using the [ABCL JAR-PATHNAME conventions][1] for which a subsequent ASDF:LOAD-SYSTEM will do the right thing.

[1]: http://trac.common-lisp.net/armedbear/browser/trunk/abcl/doc/design/pathname...

For instance, if you were to package up cl-ppcre installed via [quicklisp][10^9monkey-wants-this] in a jar file via

unix$ cd ~/quicklisp/dists/quicklisp/software && jar cfv /tmp/cl-ppcre-2.0.3.jar cl-ppcre-2.0.3

[10^9monkey-wants-this]: http://www.quicklisp.org

one could subsequently enable an ASDF controlled load of this system via

CL-USER> (push "jar:file:/tmp/cl-ppcre-2.0.3.jar!/cl-ppcre-2.0.3/" asdf:*central-registry)

When loaded, ASDF will compile the system to the user cache.

Some problems here that I'm working through:

1) You can't immediately load FASL out of the jar. In my current hackish way—i.e. without comprehending your advice yet—one has first ASDF compile the system with output translations disabled, and then

(defmethod asdf:perform ((o asdf:compile-op) (c asdf:cl-source-file))) (setf (asdf::output-translations) '((t t))))

in the target JVM to load the ABCL FASLS from the jar.

2) One has to specify the absolute path on the local filesystem (or potentially via a URI) for the jar, which makes things a bit fragile in the typical Java ecosystem usage which shuffles jars around like win32 DLLs (or, to be fair, Unix dynamic libraries) relying merely on the filename to keep things straight. My current insight into a way around would be to define another PATHNAME extension in ABCL for CLASSPATH entries, i.e. "classpath:cl-ppcre-2.0.3.jar!/cl-ppcre-2.0.3/" would refer to the named jar in the JVM CLASSPATH if it exists.

3) ABCL [has a bug][#149] that currently prevents ASDF systems located in the top-level entry of a JAR from being accessed.

[#149]: http://trac.common-lisp.net/armedbear/ticket/149

4) The extremely nice use of [JSS][jss] and [ABCLD's slight modification][abcld] of ASDF to also refer to jar files to dynamically load into the JVM probably needs to be rewritten, otherwise we run into the situation whereby we have jars (i.e. the packaged Java code) within the ASDF packaged jar which A) needs changes within ABCL to completely work and B) would be rather inefficient in that the naive implementation each request for a new entry in the JAR within a JAR would require a complete "reseek" through the enclosed ZIP file.

[jss]: http://code.google.com/p/lsw2/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fjss [abcld]: http://code.google.com/p/abcl-dynamic-install/source/browse?repo=abcld

5) A fear of mine: if I enable all this, I presume that people would start going around creating 'abcl.jar' files with different inclusions of different ASDF packagings. Without a real smart dynamic introspection system that essentially solves the problems in JVM's classpath we would end up with, at the minimum, a rather hostile situation for the end user. "Put 'abcl.jar' in your classpath." "I did, and it still didn't load Maxima." "Well, what's the checksum of your abcl.jar?" "c48d359a23ee" "Oh, you need 846f78c279cb". Ideally, I would like to come up with a mechanism that would require that 'abcl.jar' come from "official" ABCL packaging, but would somehow be able to introspect the JVM classpath to include ASDF definitions.

Comments solicited.