Patch: standalone compiler (almost)

[Stuart Sierra]

Hi Rich, and all,

I took a stab at writing a static compiler class, i.e. a main() that
just compiles all the .clj files on the command line and saves the
.class files. Patch attached.

It almost works. The only thing that seems to be missing is creating
the class for the namespace itself, like "clojure/core.class". Not
sure what needs to be added to make that work.

-Stuart Sierra

[Rich Hickey]

On Nov 16, 9:47 pm, "Stuart Sierra" <the.stuart.sie...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Interesting.

I think you've hooked in at the wrong point - better to grab the
clojure.core/compile var and call that. You should also keep the unit
of compilation the lib, not files.

Since it only requires main, might I suggest you write this in Clojure
instead?

Rich

[mac]

This would be a much welcome addition because as someone who is
writing small desktop apps with clojure it would be great if the
startup time could be reduced and I'm guessing it would help a bunch
to not have to wait for all the code to compile from text every time?

/Markus

[Stephen C. Gilardi]

On Nov 16, 2008, at 10:34 PM, Rich Hickey wrote:

> Since it only requires main, might I suggest you write this in
> Clojure instead?

I gave that a try.

Here's a simple version of a driver for the compiler, stored in src/
clj/clojure/compile.clj:

(ns clojure.compile)

(defn main
"Compiles libs into class files stored at compile-path.
All args are strings"
[compile-path & libs]
(printf "Compiling %d libs to %s\n" (count libs) compile-path)
(flush)
(binding [*compile-path* compile-path]
(doseq [lib libs]
(compile (symbol lib)))))

It works when run from within the Clojure repl:

% ls build/classes/clojure/hello*
ls: build/classes/clojure/*hello*: No such file or directory
% java -cp clojure.jar:src/clj/ clojure.lang.Repl
Clojure
user=> (require 'clojure.compile)
nil
user=> (clojure.compile/main "build/classes" "clojure.hello")
Compiling 1 libs to build/classes
nil
user=>
% ls build/classes/clojure/hello*
build/classes/clojure/hello$main__8.class build/classes/clojure/
hello.class

but when run as a standalone main, it gives an exception that appears
to be related to static initializers:

% java -cp clojure.jar:src/clj/ clojure.compile build/classes
clojure.hello
Compiling 1 libs to build/classes
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException: Var null/
null is unbound. (hello.clj:3)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4067)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:3896)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4050)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:3896)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.access$100(Compiler.java:38)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$DefExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:365)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4060)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:3896)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4050)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:3896)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:3869)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:4498)
at clojure.lang.RT.compile(RT.java:408)
at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:450)
at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:422)
at clojure.core$load__4423$fn__4425.invoke(core.clj:3343)
at clojure.core$load__4423.doInvoke(core.clj:3342)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:413)
at clojure.core$load_one__4386.invoke(core.clj:3189)
at clojure.core$compile__4429.invoke(core.clj:3347)
at clojure.compile$main__5162.doInvoke(compile.clj:23)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:428)
at clojure.lang.Var.invoke(Var.java:323)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:195)
at clojure.lang.Var.applyTo(Var.java:436)
at clojure.compile.main(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Var null/null is unbound.
at clojure.lang.Var.get(Var.java:129)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$FnExpr.parse(Compiler.java:2947)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4058)
... 25 more
%

For reference, here is the test compilee: src/clj/clojure/hello.clj:

(ns clojure.hello)

(defn main
[greetee]
(printf "Hello, %s wow\n" greetee)
(flush))

I'd appreciate help in getting a standalone invocation of something
like compile.clj above (i.e., using it's own main without Repl or
Script) to work.

In working through this, I also found that a compiler driver written
in Java may be preferable for use via build.xml because of a bootstrap
problem. Until we compile (something like) "compile.clj", we can't
call it as a standalone main. (One could add a step that builds the
compiler driver via a clojure.lang.Script invocation.)

--Steve

[Rich Hickey]

> For reference, here is the test compilee: src/clj/clojure/hello.clj:
>
> (ns clojure.hello)
>
> (defn main
> [greetee]
> (printf "Hello, %s wow\n" greetee)
> (flush))
>
> I'd appreciate help in getting a standalone invocation of something
> like compile.clj above (i.e., using it's own main without Repl or
> Script) to work.
>

I think you've got some of the interim work I've done integrating gen-
class. main now needs to be called -main, as all methods will be
defined with leading -.

> In working through this, I also found that a compiler driver written
> in Java may be preferable for use via build.xml because of a bootstrap
> problem. Until we compile (something like) "compile.clj", we can't
> call it as a standalone main. (One could add a step that builds the
> compiler driver via a clojure.lang.Script invocation.)
>

Good point. This may just be an exercise then.

Rich

[Stuart Sierra]

On Nov 17, 8:50 am, "Stephen C. Gilardi" <squee...@mac.com> wrote:

> In working through this, I also found that a compiler driver written  
> in Java may be preferable for use via build.xml because of a bootstrap  
> problem.

Yes, that's why I wanted to implement it in Java.
-S

[Stephen C. Gilardi]

> I think you've got some of the interim work I've done integrating gen-
> class. main now needs to be called -main, as all methods will be
> defined with leading -.

I'm at SVN 1106 which doesn't appear to have any changes relative to
1104 in this area. My compiled "hello.clj" works with its function
called simply "main".

--Steve

[Stephen C. Gilardi]

On Nov 17, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Rich Hickey wrote:

 main now needs to be called -main, as all methods will be defined with leading -.

Seeing that makes me think of Objective-C where instance methods have a leading - and static methods (class methods) having a leading +. I think a convention like that might make for an easier read than associating #^{:static true} with static methods, so I thought I'd mention it.

--Steve

[Matt Revelle]

I like it and Obj-C inspired syntax on the JVM is cosmic justice.

On Nov 17, 2008, at 2:37 PM, "Stephen C. Gilardi" <sque...@mac.com>
wrote:

[Rich Hickey]

On Nov 17, 8:50 am, "Stephen C. Gilardi" <squee...@mac.com> wrote:

Fixed (SVN 1108) - thanks for the report.

Rich

[Stephen C. Gilardi]

On Nov 17, 2008, at 10:33 PM, Rich Hickey wrote:

Fixed (SVN 1108) - thanks for the report.

Cool, thanks. I especially like "loadClassForName".

It seems there's something not quite right, though. I did a fresh checkout of 1108 and built with "ant" and ran with "java -jar clojure.jar" and got an exception:

% java -jar clojure.jar

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalAccessError: tried to access method clojure.lang.Compiler.pushNS()V from class clojure.core

at clojure.core.<clinit>(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)

at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:264)

at clojure.lang.RT.loadClassForName(RT.java:1620)

at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:442)

at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:424)

at clojure.lang.RT.doInit(RT.java:461)

at clojure.lang.RT.<clinit>(RT.java:328)

at clojure.lang.Repl.<clinit>(Repl.java:23)

Could not find the main class: clojure.lang.Repl. Program will exit.

--Steve

[Stephen C. Gilardi]

On Nov 17, 2008, at 11:42 PM, Stephen C. Gilardi wrote:

It seems there's something not quite right, though. I did a fresh checkout of 1108 and built with "ant" and ran with "java -jar clojure.jar" and got an exception:

Making pushNS public on line 4461 of src/jvm/clojure/lang/Compiler.java fixes the exception.

--Steve

[Rich Hickey]

Fixed - thanks.

Rich