Re: [Chicken-hackers] [PATCH] Add initial version of (chicken base)

[Evan Hanson]

Hi folks,

On 2017-09-17 12:13, Peter Bex wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 11:44:09AM +0200, address@hidden wrote:
> > > > It should be possible to link with units, but I guess that can be done via 
> > "declare".
> > > > If that is still possible then "require-library" may indeed go.
> > >
> > > Yeah, I think that's still possible.
> >
> > What it does is allowing runtime-linking to a compiled unit that is compiled
> > into a library (not a loadable .so). The expansion (using '##core#require')
> > is a bit too involved for user code. We should investigate and compare
> > the remaining loading/linking forms and make every possible case is handled:
> > loadable .so (module), static library, dynamically loadable library (also a .so,
> > confusingly), source code, etc.
>
> Let's discuss this in person at the meetup.  In any case, this doesn't
> need to hold up further development on the chicken-5 branch.

I'm reasonably confident all the different ways to load code are
supported nowadays, and also that 'require-library' can go. In fact,
most things ought to "just work" with only 'import', 'require' (for
runtime loading) or 'declare' (for compile-time, but this is also done
automatically for the user in common cases).

A couple of the "axes" and the associated "values" they can have when
loading code, off the top of my head, are:

- Locations:
  - Working directory
  - Repository path
  - Include path
- Type of source:
  - No module
  - One module
  - Multiple modules
- Type of compiled code:
  - No unit
  - One unit
  - Multiple unit
- Type of loadable "thing":
  - Source
  - Compiled shared object
  - Compiled static object
  - Compiled archive (effectively a static object containing multiple
    units, so probably doesn't deserve to be a separate item...)

Anyway, if there's a specific situation you're wondering about just ask
and I can summarise the state of things -- it's most likely I've simply
forgotten it on this list and less likely that it isn't supported
*somehow*.

Cheers,

Evan