GHC core representation

Simon Peyton-Jones simonpj@microsoft.com
Mon, 25 Jun 2001 00:38:01 -0700


| * I would like to make GHC generate only the core file and=20
| the hi file, nothing more. However, I haven't found a way of=20
| making GHC stop after outputting the hi file.  Being able to=20
| do this is useful in some other cases as well;  I sometimes=20
| look at the raw core that comes is printed with the -ddump*=20
| flags. It is often the case that I don't want anything to be=20
| generated then.

This would be a Good Thing and not too hard.=20
How would you like to specify where to stop?  "After the last
blob of debug output" might be a reasonable answer, but
we definitely also want to be able to carry on.  Yet another flag?

| * Speaking of arguments, it would be a nice thing if one=20
| could get the output in A-normal-form. This is done by GHC=20
| anyway when converting to STG and in some cases it would be=20
| really useful.

GHC is controlled by a little script, one "instruction" of which is
"dump the ext-core".   I have long wanted to externalise the script
file so that you can write it youself; just one more thing we have
not done yet.=20

Simon