"Simon Marlow"
[Aside: Is there a general agreement that the OPTION pragma should be understood by all Haskell systems, whereas system-specific options are given by pragmas like OPTIONS-GHC, OPTIONS-NHC, etc. or something along those lines?]
I'm happy to switch to using {-# OPTIONS_GHC #-} (or something) if there's consensus. Consider that a vote in favour on behalf of the GHC camp.
Just to clarify. I believe a scheme like this would make it simpler to write code that works across different Haskell system even in cases where it is necessary to give special instructions to the compiler on a per-file basis. Specifically, such a scheme would * encourage the standardization of the syntax and semantics for "important" command-line options * reduce the needs for #ifdefs. The latter would be particularly important if the consensus is that the way to enable CPP-ing of source files on a per-file basis is through the OPTION pragma mechanisms, rather than through agreed filename extensions. For the scheme to work, the various implementors would have to agree on the syntax and semantics of the OPTION options, and agree to either implement the feature in question, or else behave "sensibly" if the option is encountered (e.g. by ignoring it or aborting and emitting an error message). [Aside: Might it be a good idea to allow Cabal-style language extension specifiers to be listed in an EXTENSION pragma? Enabling extensions locally would seem useful at last for some extensions, and in general being able to state what language a module actually is written in has its attractions. Of course, this could be done via the OPTION pragma mechanism, but since Cabal already has a more principled and abstract way of specifying extensions, maybe it would make sense to allow that mechanism to be used for individual files?] Malcolm Wallace writes:
Currently I believe ghc uses {-# OPTIONS ... #-} whilst nhc98 uses the pair {-# OPTIONS_COMPILE ... #-} {-# OPTIONS_LINK ... #-} and Hugs has #!runhugs ...
I have no specific preferences for naming, and am happy to change to whatever consensus arrives. However I do think separating out extra link options from the compile-time options could be useful.
Could you elaborate on this, please? E.g. through some examples. What kind of link options do you have in mind? Are they independent of the Haskell system and operating system, or might they depend on either or both? Best, /Henrik -- Henrik Nilsson School of Computer Science and Information Technology The University of Nottingham nhn@cs.nott.ac.uk This message has been scanned but we cannot guarantee that it and any attachments are free from viruses or other damaging content: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.