Windows Install Issues for erf (and statistics)

[Simon Marlow]

On 23/09/2009 10:35, Dominic.Steinitz at barclayscapital.com wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Simon Marlow [mailto:marlowsd at gmail.com]
>> Sent: 22 September 2009 13:44
>> To: Dominic Steinitz
>> Cc: Lennart Augustsson; Steinitz, Dominic: Markets (LDN);
> cabal-devel at haskell.org; libraries at haskell.org
>> Subject: Re: Windows Install Issues for erf (and statistics)
>>
>> Are you sure the problem you had isn't just that the C erfc function
> is not available on Windows?
>>
>> Oh, perhaps the problem that Lennart is referring to is that when GHCi
> loads up a package it requires that all the symbols in>  the package can
> be resolved, whereas when you statically link a .a library we only have
> to resolve the symbols required by the>  library modules that the
> program actually refers to.
>
> That may be it. If I use ghc all works:
>
> C:\p4wksp\steinitd_fpf_virgin_ws\FPF_Dev.br\src>ghc
> -package-conf=..\ThirdParty\ghc\ghc-6.10.1\fpf.package.conf --make
> Paths.hs -o Paths.exe
>
> C:\p4wksp\steinitd_fpf_virgin_ws\FPF_Dev.br\src>Paths.exe
> [0.0,-0.3701728565440763,-0.43078071862053197,-1.2205246923473059,-1.294
> 0085383906827]
>
> But if I use ghci:
>
> Prelude>  :l Paths.hs
> [1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( Paths.hs, interpreted )
> Ok, modules loaded: Main.
> *Main>  main
> Loading package syb ... linking ... done.
> Loading package base-3.0.3.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package bytestring-0.9.1.4 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package Win32-2.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package old-locale-1.0.0.1 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package time-1.1.2.2 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package uvector-0.1.0.4 ... linking ... done.
> Loading package erf-1.0.0.0 ... linking ...<interactive>:
> C:/p4wksp/steinitd_fpf_virgin_ws/FPF_Dev.br/src/../thirdparty/haskell_pa
> ckages\erf-1.0.0.0\ghc-6.10.1\HSerf-1.0.0.0.o: unknown symbol `_erfc'
> : unable to load package `erf-1.0.0.0'
>
>
>> So one workaround would be to link in a dummy erfc() function, or
> alternatively hack the erf pacakge so that it omits the
>> offending parts on Windows.
>
> I'll probably do the latter for the time being but is there something
> that could be done to ghci to stop it complaining in the case of other
> similar situations?

It would mean doing some kind of lazy linking, and would be pretty 
tricky I think.  In any case, it will only fail again when we start 
using shared libraries with GHCi, so I don't think it's worth tackling. 
  (or maybe it will work with shared libraries; either way I don't think 
we should worry about doing anything in GHC's linker :-)

Cheers,
	Simon