--scratchdir ?

[Duncan Coutts]

On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 13:29 +0000, Ross Paterson wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 01:15:21PM +0000, Duncan Coutts wrote:
> > Can someone remind me why we have the --scratchdir flag for hugs.
> > 
> > As far as I can see all it does is specify where some temporary files go
> > after being preprocessed but before being installed. The default is
> > dist/scratch.
> > 
> > The question is, why is it configurable and not simply always
> > dist/scratch?
> > 
> > What problem are people solving by modifying --scratchdir ?
> 
> It allows the hugs build system to place the uninstalled libraries so
> that hugs can be run in-place (e.g. for testing) prior to installation.

Would it be possible to use ./setup copy --destdir=inplace instead?

Running inplace is indeed something we want to support, indeed we have
setup register --inplace which allows that for ghc and would allow it
for other systems that use package registration rather than simple
search paths. Perhaps we can find a more direct mechanism that we can
support and advertise for hugs.

Duncan