ghci and ghc -threaded broken with pipes & forking

[John Goerzen]

Simon Marlow wrote:
> John Goerzen wrote:
>> Brian B wrote:
>>> Hi Bulat,
>>>
>>> My contribution to the survey: I've used forkProcess to daemonize
>>> a ghc program inside the haskell fuse bindings:
>>> http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/HFuse
>>> http://code.haskell.org/hfuse/System/Fuse.hsc
>>>
>>> If removing the non-threaded RTS would break forkProcess entirely,
>>> these bindings would have to do something different. The issue: users
>>> of the FUSE C api will get daemonized using daemon(2); it'd be
>>> nice if GHC fuse programs could behave similarly.
>> I also use forkProcess extensively: in HSH, for instance, which is used
>> by hpodder, twidge, and a host of other tools.  Removing the ability to
>> use forkProcess removes the ability to write a Unix shell in Haskell, or
>> to do anything shell-like, or anything even mildly advanced involving
>> piping, file descriptors, and the like.  I would see it as a significant
>> regression.
> 
> Have you tried those apps with the threaded RTS?  I'd be interested to 
> know whether they work as expected.

I have, and it didn't work well.  But it's been awhile, and I can't tell
you anymore what version of GHC or what exactly the problem was.  I was
most certainly 6.8 or older.  Once 6.10 hits Debian, I could test again
there.  But see below...

> I'm not suggesting we remove the non-threaded RTS, however perhaps 
> there's an argument for making -threaded the default.  After all, that's 
> what you get with GHCi by default right now.

That's probably an OK solution.

I would also add: does the threaded RTS support all platforms?  For
instance, GHC runs on my Alpha and on AIX, unregisterised.  ghci doesn't
run there, but GHC does.  If you drop the non-threaded RTS, does that
mean that GHC doesn't work there at all?

>> The System.Process calls, last I checked (in 6.8.x) were both too buggy
>> to use for complex tasks, and too inadequate for some (though the
>> adequacy has been improving.)
> 
> If there's bugginess we need to get it fixed - please report those bugs!

Already done:

http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/1780
  (still open since Nov 2007)

There was also a thread here regarding problems with the threaded RTS:

http://www.mail-archive.com/glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org/msg11573.html

Not sure if that has been fixed, or was an error on my part, but see
your reply at:

http://www.mail-archive.com/glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org/msg11585.html

I admit I haven't had the chance to reread that whole thread, so my
apologies if this is a red herring.

-- John