Trouble building GHC

Wed May 31 09:41:28 UTC 2023

> I've had no issues with the configure step by running the configure_ghc
shell function that the flake provides.

For reference, this is the relevant ghc.nix issue:
https://github.com/alpmestan/ghc.nix/issues/111
It seems that the `configure_ghc` used to be a shell function in
https://github.com/alpmestan/ghc.nix/blob/b200a76a4f28d6434e4678827a0373002e641b12/default.nix#L156
.
Nowadays, it became a standalone bash script (great work, Magnus!), which
explains why it works for you:
https://github.com/alpmestan/ghc.nix/blob/f34c21877257fc37bbcf8962dc006024bfd0f946/ghc.nix#L138

You can't do `./configure $CONFIGURE_ARGS` in zsh directly, though.

Am Mi., 31. Mai 2023 um 09:49 Uhr schrieb Georgi Lyubenov <
godzbanebane at gmail.com>:

> Just chiming in to mention that I'm on zsh, and I've had no issues with
> the configure step by running the configure_ghc shell function that the
> flake provides.
> On 5/31/23 10:13, Sebastian Graf wrote:
>
> Hi Lyle,
>
> I'm sorry that you have so much trouble in getting your first build done.
> The Classes.hi issue sounds like something I had experienced in the past,
> but I'm not having it at the moment.
> Are you also using symlinks by any chance? Then it is very likely that you
> have been bitten by https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/22451,
> the workaround to which would be to do something like `cd "$(readlink -f
> .)"` before you start your build.
>
> Regarding your second issue using ghc.nix, a quick google turned up
> https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/20429#note_379762.
> Is it possible that you didn't start from a clean build?
> E.g., at the least you should `rm -rf _build` (note that `hadrian/cabal
> clean` sadly is insufficient IIRC for reasons I don't recall).
> I often simply do `git clean -fxd` to be extra sure.
> After that, you'll have to boot, configure (including passing
> $CONFIGURE_ARGS) and build again.
> By the way, are you using ZSH? I'm using it and I have to pass the
> CONFIGURE_ARGS in a slightly different way
> <https://github.com/alpmestan/ghc.nix#building-ghc>: `./configure
> ${=CONFIGURE_ARGS}`.
>
> I also updated
> https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/building/preparation/linux#nixnixos
> to account for new-style flakified builds+direnv, if that's a workflow that
> you are familiar with.
>
> Hope that helps,
> Sebastian
>
> Am Mi., 31. Mai 2023 um 05:14 Uhr schrieb Lyle Kopnicky <lists at qseep.net>:
>
>> Hi folks, I’m new here. I’ll be attending the GHC Contributors’ Workshop
>> next week, and in preparation, I’m trying to build GHC, both the native
>> code backend and the JS backend. So far, I’ve only tried to build it with
>> the native code backend, but I haven’t been able to get it to work. I’ve
>> gotten help from some friendly folks on the #ghc channel on Matrix, and
>> made some progress, but I’m still stuck.
>>
>> Is there anyone here who could be a point person for helping me get it to
>> build? BTW I’m located on the west coast of the US (until next week when
>> I’ll be in Switzerland), so time lag may be a factor.
>>
>> I’m using a Mac with aarch64 and macOS 13.3. Here are some of the things
>> I’ve tried, and issues I’ve run into:
>>
>>
>>    - Started with the advice from this wiki:
>>    https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/building
>>    - Checked out the ghc source, on HEAD.
>>    - The rest of the steps were at
>>    https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/building/preparation/mac-osx
>>    - Already had Apple’s command line tools, but when I tried to do
>>    operations using them, I got an error saying I needed the full Xcode, so I
>>    installed that.
>>    - brew install autoconf automake python sphinx-doc
>>       - Worked fine, also added sphinx-build to the path
>>    - Initially tried using ghc 9.2.7 to build - later tried switching to
>>    9.4.4 and eventually 9.4.5
>>    - cabal update; cabal install alex happy haddock
>>    - This is where I ran into trouble - couldn’t build haddock. Cabal
>>       said it couldn’t resolve the dependencies.
>>       - I tried switching to ghc 9.4.4 and cabal 3.10.1.0 - same problem
>>       - User romes (Rodrigo) on #ghc helped with this - was able to
>>       reproduce it and filed a ticket:
>>       https://github.com/haskell/haddock/issues/1596
>>       - However he pointed out that haddock was already supplied through
>>       ghcup so I don’t need to build it.
>>    - Already had MacTex installed and I installed the DejaVu font family.
>>    - ./boot && ./configure
>>       - Worked fine, although ./boot gave me lots of autoconf warnings
>>       like:
>>       configure.ac:9: warning: The macro `AC_HELP_STRING' is obsolete.
>>       configure.ac:9: You should run autoupdate.
>>       - Apparently autoconf has renamed these macros to pluralize them,
>>       and also encloses the arguments in square brackets.
>>    - hadrian/build
>>       - Ran into another problem: The build failed with:
>>       Error, file does not exist and no rule available:
>>
>>       /Users/lyle/devel/haskell/ghc/_build/stage1/libraries/ghc-prim/build/GHC/Classes.hi
>>       - Rodrigo helped me out with this. Introduced me to other build
>>       flags like -j —flavour-quick.
>>       - The issue proved quite persistent, but it might fail on
>>       different .hi files.
>>       - It turns out if you ask Hadrian to build that specific file, it
>>       works. So somehow it can find a rule! Then you can proceed to rebuild and
>>       it will fail on a different .hi file. Obviously it would be
>>       tedious to do this for all the possible files it can fail on.
>>       - I also tried not building profiled libraries.
>>       - I tried, instead of using the Apple toolchain, using llvm 12,
>>       then llvm 16. But I got different errors from that.
>>       - Rodrigo was unable to reproduce the issue.
>>    - So, I thought I’d try the Nix approach.
>>    - First I had to repair my nix installation, because apparently
>>    updating macOS overwrites /etc/zshrc, overwriting the bit that sources
>>    '/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/profile.d/nix-daemon.sh’
>>    - Nix reminded me when I ran commands that I needed to add the
>>    flag '--extra-experimental-features nix-command’ and
>>    sometimes '--extra-experimental-features flakes’
>>    - The instructions from the wiki
>>    <https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/building/preparation/mac-osx>
>>    didn’t work, got an error:
>>       -
>>       - nix build -f .gitlab/darwin/toolchain.nix -o toolchain.sh
>>       --extra-experimental-features nix-command
>>       - error: cannot evaluate a function that has an argument without a
>>       value ('system’)
>>    - But folks on #ghc recommended I use ghc.nix instead
>>       - Pointed me to https://ghc.dev/
>>       - That linked to these instructions:
>>       https://github.com/alpmestan/ghc.nix#building-ghc
>>       - But those instructions failed with:
>>          - error: nix-shell requires a single derivation
>>          - User Artem said my command was wrong, instead recommended:
>>          - nix develop
>>          https://github.com/alpmestan/ghc.nix/archive/master.tar.gz
>>       - Once I added the magic experimental flags…
>>       - It failed, with:
>>          - error: NAR hash mismatch in input
>>          'github:commercialhaskell/all-cabal-hashes/02bb1361217e690d83af9cc132b1d2bf2096763c'
>>          (/nix/store/zbav3qqbyz7mn7rh4iwybs0ni01ppdbj-source), expected
>>          'sha256-HdAnlSc4U8ftnZrBZr2CewsPQs03V9K2gkTVHKG8IfA=', got
>>          'sha256-86BgvJ+ebMxTp+nPxo659hsNJbhE6CYJWiIbQXX+sBM=
>>          - User MangoIV helped me out with this.
>>       - First I tried regenerating the lock file, with nix flake update.
>>          - Didn’t fix the problem.
>>       - Then, I checked out the branch update_flake_lock_action
>>          - This is apparently a branch designed to fix the problem
>>          - Didn’t fix the problem
>>       - Then I regenerated the lock file again, with nix flake update
>>          - That worked! Well, at least that got me to a ghc.nix prompt
>>       - So, I did:
>>          - ./boot
>>          - ./configure
>>          - cabal v2-update
>>          - hadrian/build -j --flavour=quick
>>          - It chugged along for quite a while. Sadly, it ended with this
>>       error:
>>          -
>>          - Linking
>>          /Users/lyle/Sync/devel/haskell/ghc/hadrian/dist-newstyle/build/aarch64-osx/ghc-9.2.4/hadrian-0.1.0.0/x/hadrian/build/hadrian/hadrian
>>          ...
>>          Data.Binary.Get.runGet at position 1181: Unknown encoding for
>>          constructor
>>       - What also worries me is that I thought I read somewhere that
>>       ghc.nix doesn’t work for cross-compilers, so even if it works for
>>       the native backend, it may not work for the JS backend.
>>
>>
>> Any help would be much appreciated!
>> — Lyle
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>>
>
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