GHCJS now runs Template Haskell on node.js - Any interest in out of process TH for general cross compilation?

[John Meacham]

In case anyone wanted to start writing haskell android code now, jhc
fully supports android as a target. here is an app made with it

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.metasepi.ajhc.android.cube

this was made with Kiwamu's ajhc branch but code has been merged back
into the main tree.

On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 5:54 PM, Carter Schonwald
<carter.schonwald at gmail.com> wrote:
> This would probably be a great boon for those trying to use haskell for
> Android and IOS right? how might the emulation setup work for those?
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Carter Schonwald
> <carter.schonwald at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> wow, this is great work!
>>
>> If theres a clear path to getting the generic tooling into 7.10, i'm all
>> for it :) (and willing to help on concrete mechanical subtasks)
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Luite Stegeman <stegeman at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> hi all,
>>>
>>> I've added some code [1] [2] to GHCJS to make it run Template Haskell
>>> code on node.js, rather than using the GHC linker. GHCJS has supported TH
>>> for a long time now, but so far always relied on native (host) code for it.
>>> This is the main reason that GHCJS always builds native and JavaScript code
>>> for everything (another is that Cabal Setup.hs scripts need to be compiled
>>> to some host-runnable form, but that can also be JavaScript if you have
>>> node.js)
>>>
>>> Now besides the compiler having to do twice the work, this has some other
>>> disadvantages:
>>>
>>> - Our JavaScript code has the same dependencies (packages) as native
>>> code, which means packages like unix or Win32 show up somewhere, depending
>>> on the host environment. This also limits our options in choosing
>>> JS-specific packages.
>>> - The Template Haskell code runs on the host environment, which might be
>>> slightly different from the target, for example in integer size or operating
>>> system specific constants.
>>>
>>> Moreover, building native code made the GHCJS installation procedure more
>>> tricky, making end users think about libgmp or libiconv locations, since it
>>> basically required the same preparation as building GHC from source. This
>>> change will make installing much easier and more reliable (we still have to
>>> update the build scripts).
>>>
>>> How it works is pretty simple:
>>>
>>> - When any code needs to be run on the target (hscCompileCoreExpr,
>>> through the Hooks API new in GHC 7.8), GHCJS starts a node.js process with
>>> the thrunner.js [3] script,
>>> - GHCJS sends its RTS and the Template Haskell server code [1] to
>>> node.js, the script starts a Haskell thread running the server,
>>> - for every splice, GHCJS compiles it to JavaScript and links it using
>>> its incremental linking functionality. The code for the splice, including
>>> dependencies that have not yet been sent to the runner (for earlier
>>> splices), is then sent in a RunTH [4] message,
>>> - the runner loads and runs the code in the Q monad, can send queries to
>>> GHCJS for reification,
>>> - the runner sends back the result as a serialized Template Haskell AST
>>> (using GHC.Generics for the Binary instances).
>>>
>>> All Template Haskell functionality is supported, including recent
>>> additions for reifying modules and annotations. I still need to clean up and
>>> push the patches for the directory and process packages, but after that, the
>>> TH code can read/write files, run processes and interact with them and make
>>> network connections, all through node.js.
>>>
>>> Now since this approach is in no way specific to JavaScript, I was
>>> wondering if there's any interest in getting this functionality into GHC
>>> 7.10 for general cross compilation. The runner would be a native (target)
>>> program with dynamic libraries (or object files) being sent over to the
>>> target machine (or emulator) for the splices.
>>>
>>> Thanks to Andras Slemmer from Prezi who helped build the initial proof of
>>> concept (without reification) at BudHac.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>>
>>> Luite
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs/blob/414eefb2bb8825b3c4c5cddfec4d79a142bc261a/src/Gen2/TH.hs
>>> [2]
>>> https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs-prim/blob/2dffdc2d732b044377037e1d6ebeac2812d4f9a4/GHCJS/Prim/TH/Eval.hs
>>> [3]
>>> https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs/blob/414eefb2bb8825b3c4c5cddfec4d79a142bc261a/lib/etc/thrunner.js
>>> [4]
>>> https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs-prim/blob/2dffdc2d732b044377037e1d6ebeac2812d4f9a4/GHCJS/Prim/TH/Types.hs#L29
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list
>>> Glasgow-haskell-users at haskell.org
>>> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users
>>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
John Meacham - http://notanumber.net/