How MD are .hi files?
Hi, for an unregisterised ghc-6.8.2 (or newer), are the .hi files dependent (except for the 32 vs. 64 bit word size)? I had a quick look at the stuff in compiler/iface, but the only MD part I found was that 32/64 bit difference. TIA Ciao, Kili ps: if you think this sounds like a complete newbie question, you're right; I've been far too busy hacking on boring stuff like Makefiles, and didn't have time to look at the interesting code (i.e. ghc itself). My knowledge of ghc's internals is at the state of 1998, or even older, I really don't remember ;-) -- Options are good. As long as they are optional. -- Artur Grabowski
Matthias Kilian wrote:
Hi,
for an unregisterised ghc-6.8.2 (or newer), are the .hi files dependent (except for the 32 vs. 64 bit word size)? I had a quick look at the stuff in compiler/iface, but the only MD part I found was that 32/64 bit difference.
The word size is probably the only dependency, but there are many reasons that you can't just take the .hc/.hi files generated by an unregisterised build on one machine and expect them to work on another machine. First, you have to watch out for conditional compilation in the original Haskell source file. For example, if the .hs file contains something like #ifdef mingw32_HOST_OS, then the .hc and .hi files will both be Windows-only. There are certainly many instances of this in the libraries right now. Another problem is the configuration information that gets into the build via the autoconf scripts. Things like the size of C types in Foreign.C.Types, or the errno values in Foreign.C.Error might be different on the target machine. I hope I've managed to understand your question correctly... if not please ask again! Cheers, Simon
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 11:35:36AM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
for an unregisterised ghc-6.8.2 (or newer), are the .hi files dependent (except for the 32 vs. 64 bit word size)? I had a quick look at the stuff in compiler/iface, but the only MD part I found was that 32/64 bit difference.
The word size is probably the only dependency, but there are many reasons that you can't just take the .hc/.hi files generated by an unregisterised build on one machine and expect them to work on another machine.
I really don't expect this. I just decided to be lazy and provide not only .hc files but also .hi files[1] for the OpenBSD port, and then I thought: "does this make sense at all? Can it even be of use for porting GHC to other archs on OpenBSD, or for the NetBSD folks working on GHC?" Ciao, Kili [1] Of course, the correct solution would not need the .hi files, but just use the stage1 bootstrapped from .hc files to start rebuilding the libraries. But that would require even more hacking on the Makefiles, and I've already an insane amount of hacks sitting around. -- It compiles -- let's ship it!
Matthias Kilian wrote:
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 11:35:36AM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
for an unregisterised ghc-6.8.2 (or newer), are the .hi files dependent (except for the 32 vs. 64 bit word size)? I had a quick look at the stuff in compiler/iface, but the only MD part I found was that 32/64 bit difference. The word size is probably the only dependency, but there are many reasons that you can't just take the .hc/.hi files generated by an unregisterised build on one machine and expect them to work on another machine.
I really don't expect this. I just decided to be lazy and provide not only .hc files but also .hi files[1] for the OpenBSD port, and then I thought: "does this make sense at all? Can it even be of use for porting GHC to other archs on OpenBSD, or for the NetBSD folks working on GHC?"
Here's a message I wrote quite a while ago on this topic: http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/glasgow-haskell-users/2005-May/008456.html some of that is out of date, but at least it describes most of the issues with having a platform-independen hc bootstrap.
[1] Of course, the correct solution would not need the .hi files, but just use the stage1 bootstrapped from .hc files to start rebuilding the libraries. But that would require even more hacking on the Makefiles, and I've already an insane amount of hacks sitting around.
If the .hc files were platform independent, then the .hi files would be too, by definition. Cheers, Simon
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Matthias Kilian -
Simon Marlow