Hi
CLAD can be used for *any* Mac/Windows/UN*X configuration. The current limitations are that it assumes "personal" configurations and not "system wide/admin accessible only locations".
The issue is that, as soon as ASDF gets loaded, it should load CLAD as a minimal prerequisite. At that point you have the CLAD package present and you can issue a
(clad:ensure-app-or-library-data-folder "ASDF")
or even a
(clad:ensure-app-or-library-data-folder "ASDF" :impl-dependent t)
And you will have the, e.g., "~/Library/Common Lisp/ASDF/" ready on a Mac, or the "C:/Users/MeMyself/AppData/Roaming/Common Lisp/ASDF/LispWorks/" ready on Windows (10, and 11 for sure).
Is that what you want?
I did write this thingy because there was a pesky configuration issue with - another shameless plus - HELambdaP (https://helambdap.sf.net). I believe it solved the problem in a rather general way.
Cheers
Marco
PS Of course there is another rabbit hole to be handled - or avoided :) What you REALLY want to have in the "ASDF loading code" is:
(load-if-possible "CLAD-STUFF") (funcall (find-symbol (string '#:ensure-app-or-library-data-folder) "CLAD") "ASDF")
On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 3:49 PM Robert Goldman rpgoldman@sift.net wrote:
I was just answering what I thought was your question -- could CLAD be used as a source for ASDF configuration.
On 4 Jun 2023, at 15:57, Marco Antoniotti wrote:
Hi Robert,
AFAIU this is the configuration of ASDF itself, when loading in a fresh CL. I think we are not clear about the timing of what should be loaded when.
CLAD does not need ASDF or UIOP. It just has a .asd file because Quicklisp asks for it.
Cheers
MA
On Sun, Jun 4, 2023 at 9:00 PM Robert Goldman rpgoldman@sift.net wrote:
TBQH, I am not as sure as I should be. I try to avoid all the configuration that happens while ASDF loads, so that I configure only *after* the load is complete, at a point where I can watch what goes on. As I have said before, I don't like the configuration that uses config files, environment variables or magic directories, because it's impossible to debug (by the time ASDF is loaded and can be instrumented, it's too late).
I believe the right thing would be for you to figure out how to add an entry to the variable asdf:*default-source-registries* that is a function that will collect the appropriate configuration information. But I don't claim to fully understand source-registry.lisp https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf/-/blob/9c7f1b76ca8e820c020a3ec3aeb4b507ab15aa34/source-registry.lisp .
On 4 Jun 2023, at 3:29, Marco Antoniotti wrote:
Sure.
I am not privy to ASDF bootstrap. Where would you start?
MA
On Sun, Jun 4, 2023 at 12:41 AM Robert P. Goldman rpgoldman@sift.net wrote:
The next step would be to add an ASDF plug-in so that ASDF can read its configuration from a CLAD set up…. :-)
-- Robert P. Goldman
On June 3, 2023 at 16:56:53, Marco Antoniotti ( marco.antoniotti@unimib.it) wrote:
Wellll. You need a CL to load ASDF, don’t you? :)
CLAD is minimal and barebones. You can load it from two files (just because the DEFPACKAGE is separate) and it’s there. Look ma! No ASDF! :) (Or UIOP)
But I see your point. Time to add a clad-setup.lisp file.
Cheers
MA
On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 at 23:10, Robert Goldman rpgoldman@sift.info wrote:
I do like the idea of CLAD, but in this case isn't there a Catch-22? You need to configure ASDF in order to load CLAD, so you can't use CLAD to configure ASDF, can you?
On 3 Jun 2023, at 10:57, Marco Antoniotti wrote:
Ahem. Shameless plug: https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/mantoniotti/CLAD
Cheers
MA
On Sat, Jun 3, 2023 at 5:28 PM Robert Goldman rpgoldman@sift.info wrote:
Dear Greg,
Thanks for the kind words! I am not sure why I didn't see your post on ASDF-devel, but I didn't. And I have seen several requests for moderation, so the list seems live. In case my response is interesting to the group, I am responding to the list as well.
A couple of disclaimers: (1) I haven't used Windows in more than a decade, and (2) I don't use these configuration files. I find I'm happier to keep all of my lisp configuration in lisp configuration files ( clinit.cl, .sbclrc, etc. -- indeed I point all of those at one single lisp-config.lisp file), instead of having to hunt through multiple files in multiple locations for this information. So take anything I say with more than a grain of salt (given your cardiologist approves!).
That said, these config files are placed according to the XDG standard which... as far as I can tell only applies to linux, and not to either Windows or MacOS. So there's code in ASDF/UIOP that extends XDG to other platforms. ASDF documentation about XDG can be found here https://asdf.common-lisp.dev/asdf.html#XDG-base-directory.
I don't understand Windows enough to understand this piece of text from the ASDF manual:
Since support for querying the Windows registry is not possible to do in reasonable amounts of portable Common Lisp code, ASDF 3 relies on the environment variables that Windows usually exports, and are hopefully in synch with the Windows registry. If you care about the details, see uiop/configuration.lisp and don’t hesitate to suggest improvements.
The relevant code may be found in uiop/configuration.lisp https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf/-/blob/release/uiop/configuration.lisp. It looks like invoking the functions uiop:xdg-config-home and uiop:xdg-config-pathnames might help you figure out where ASDF is looking. But I don't really understand the discussion about the registry above. I do see a bit of code that says that UIOP (and thus ASDF) look for configs in the value of (uiop:xdg-data-dirs "config/") -- maybe see what that evaluates to on your Windows box?
I hope that these snippets have been helpful, and if you find the answers you seek, please send to me and ASDF-devel, so that the information will be available to others.
It might be a good thing if someone with the resources would gift a Windows resource to the CL Foundation to hook into common-lisp.net so that the community doesn't have to rely on this kind of guesswork. I note that ASDF is no longer tested on Windows at all, since I don't have access to a Windows VM and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to use it (nor do I have the time to learn).
Good luck! R
On 2 Jun 2023, at 19:40, Greg Bennett wrote:
Good evening Robert,
Some longish time ago you were kind enough to help me with ASDF matters. I posted recently to asdf-devel, largely in the hope that you might see it, I confess.
Web search has, so far, not been helpful, I'm afraid.
I shall quite understand if you do not reply; your inbox must receive lots of this sort of thing.
I have a test system in c:/ASDF/asdf-tests/ copied from the linux directory /home/gwbennett/ASDF/asdf-tests/
Under Linux in my source-registry.conf.d directory I have the file gb-source.conf with the one line (:tree "/home/gwbennett/ASDF/asdf-tests/")
Then in sbcl I can issue (asdf:load-system "gb-a") and all is well.
I have tried various spots for gb-source.conf under Windows, all without success:
c:\Users\Greg\AppData\Local\config\common-lisp\source-registry.conf.d\
c:\Users\Greg\
c:\Users\Greg\AppData\
c:\Users\Greg\AppData\Local\
If I issue, old style, (push "c:/ASDF/asdf-tests/" asdf:*central-registry*) then all is well.
Perhaps there is no place for a config file under W!
Cheers
Greg
--
Marco Antoniotti https://dcb.disco.unimib.it