On 16 Mar 2018, at 13:05, Lucien P wrote:
On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:25 Robert Dodier <robert.dodier@gmail.com> wrote:Hi,
I am resuming my tinkering on the Maxima interface to ASDF. I have
bumped into a kind of minor problem for which I don't see a solution.
Maxima can read .info files for documentation items. An index file
(Lisp) which is created ahead of time (not run time) tells where the
items are in the .info. The .asd, index, and .info are all in the same
directory. Some code in the index file tells Maxima to read the .info
from the same place from which the index is loaded (via
*LOAD-PATHNAME*).
That works great when the asd is loaded via LOAD-SOURCE-OP since
*LOAD-PATHNAME* points to the directory where the .info file is. But
when the asd is loaded via LOAD-OP, it doesn't work, since
*LOAD-PATHNAME* points into the place that ASDF puts fasls.
I gather from the ASDF reference manual that there isn't any way to
load, without compiling, only the index file (I'm looking at "How do I
mark a source file to be loaded only and not compiled?"). So I'm
thinking about some other way to locate the .info file. Is there a
special variable or something which tells the path from which the .asd
is being loaded? I looked at the documentation and the list of
external symbols but couldn't puzzle out anything.
The more general idea is that the system contains a non-Lisp data
file. Is there a general approach to work with that?
Thanks for any light you can shed on this problem.
Robert DodierThe way I've been doing this is with a :STATIC-FILE component (you must include file extensions).ASDF will put your static file into the FASL location without touching it then you can find it to load using ASDF:FIND-COMPONENT. One of the component's slots will have the pathname of the "compiled" file in it, you don't have to use *LOAD-TRUENAME*.
I don't believe a static file should be moved, and if not moved, you should be able to load it with something like this;
(asdf:system-relative-pathname "maxima" "subdir/my-static-file.blort")
To be honest, I don't fully understand the question. How is the index file created, and by what process? Is it created as side-effect of compilation, or is there some special compilation process that creates it? If the latter, then that process could be brought under ASDF control, and the code used to create the index file could be configured, through the use of output-files configuration, to place the file wherever you want.
On the other hand, if the info files are static, and the indices are created in the FASL location, then you can just use ASDF:SYSTEM-RELATIVE-PATHNAME instead of *load-pathname* to find the file.
On the other other hand, you could use *compile-file-truename* instead of *load-pathname*, but that would have semantics that could vary (e.g., if you load some of this stuff interactively, instead of through ASDF), so that's not an ideal choice.