Can I get the internal name of a package at runtime?

MarLinn monkleyon at gmail.com
Sat Oct 14 15:35:28 UTC 2017


Hi.

I'm experimenting with plug-ins right now. I did manage to dynamically 
load functions at runtime. The caveat: Something (cabal? ghc?) mangles 
the package names. For example, to load a function called "theFunction" 
from a module called "Callee" in a package "Plugin", I had to address it 
via the name 
"Pluginzm0zi0zi0zi0zm2QaFQQzzYhnKJSPRXA7VtPe_Callee_theFunction_closure". 
O…K. Most parts of that are clear, and thanks for making my package 
cooler by appending a "z", but who is this Ozi guy and why is he rapping 
about modems? Without knowing Ozi, the only way I found to get at this 
magic string is to manually look at the actual ELF-header of the 
compiled module. While that might be a robust way, it seems neither 
portable nor elegant.

The "plugins" library failed too, probably for the same reason. (Or it's 
under-documented. Probably both.) The "dynamic-loader" library does 
something via c, therefore no.

Which brings me to the question: Is there any way for a module to get at 
its own internal package name? Or even at the internal name of an 
external package? If not, can I somehow recreate the magic mangling at 
runtime? At first I thought the functions in the "Module", "Name" etc 
modules of GHC might help – but it seems I either need an existing Name 
(that I have no idea how to get) or I have to create one (with no idea 
what magic mangler to call).

I'm asking this question here rather than on café as I feel that if 
there is a solution, it's probably buried in the details of GHC.

Thanks for any suggestions,
MarLinn



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