[Haskell-cafe] Accessing and Inspecting StgBindings in Ghci

[Michael Christensen]

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to understand how STG works, and my goal right now 
is to be able to inspect StgBinding values. I've written a short 
program, based on the wiki article GHC/As a library 
<https://wiki.haskell.org/GHC/As_a_library>, like below:

-- Code.hs --
module Lib (printSTG, dumpSTG) where

import           Control.Monad.Ghc  (lift, runGhcT)
import           CorePrep           (corePrepPgm)
import           CoreToStg          (coreToStg)
import           DynFlags           (defaultFatalMessager, defaultFlushOut)
import           GHC                hiding (runGhcT)
import           GHC.Paths          (libdir)
import           HscMain            (newHscEnv)
import           HscTypes           (hsc_dflags, typeEnvTyCons)
import           Outputable         (interppSP, showSDoc)
import           System.Environment (getArgs)
import           StgSyn             (StgBinding)

dumpSTG :: String -> IO [StgBinding]
dumpSTG fileName = defaultErrorHandler defaultFatalMessager 
defaultFlushOut $
     runGhcT (Just libdir) $ do
       sess <- getSession
       let dflags = hsc_dflags sess
       setSessionDynFlags dflags
       cm <- compileToCoreModule fileName
       let md = cm_module cm
       ml <- fmap ms_location $ getModSummary $ moduleName md
       lift $ do
         cp <- corePrepPgm sess ml <$> cm_binds <*> (typeEnvTyCons . 
cm_types) $ cm
         coreToStg dflags md cp

printSTG =
     getArgs >>= \x -> case x of
     [] -> putStrLn "usage: Main <file.hs>"
     (fileName:_) -> do
       bindings <- dumpSTG fileName
       str <- runGhcT (Just libdir) $ do
         dflags <- getSessionDynFlags
         return $ showSDoc dflags $ interppSP bindings
       putStrLn str

This works when I compile it to print out a Haskell file in STG format.

However, *my question is*, is there a way so that I can call dumpSTG to 
get back that list of StgBindings, *from within Ghci*? Whenever I do so 
within Ghci, i.e.

ghci> :l code.hs
ghci> bindings <- dumpSTG "fileToTest.hs"
<interactive>: panic! (the 'impossible' happened)
   (GHC version 7.10.3 for x86_64-unknown-linux):
   no package state yet: call GHC.setSessionDynFlags

I know that it's saying I need to set the session dyn flags, but I'm not 
sure how that can get done from within Ghci, especially because that 
needs to get done within the GhcMonad. Part of my problem may stem from 
having a inadequate understanding of monads. Any help or pointers would 
be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much,
Mike

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