How Do I Debug a Boot Error?

How Do I Debug a Boot Error?

[Noah Lavine]

Hello all,

I've managed to get Guile to give me this error when it starts up:

;;; compiling /Users/noah/Desktop/guile/guile/module/language/objcode/spec.scm
guile: uncaught throw to wrong-type-arg: (#f Wrong type (expecting
~A): ~S (exact integer (#t #<catch-closure 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure
1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)) ((#t #<catch-closure
1037f88a0> #<catch-closure 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)))

How should I debug such a thing? I would like a backtrace at least,
but I'm not sure how to get to one because Guile never gets to the
prompt. I've tried starting it with GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE=0 and then
doing "(use-modules (language objcode spec))", which should cause the
same file to be autocompiled, but that works fine. So it seems like
something odd is happening in the boot sequence.

I could of course start adding printf's to the C boot code, but I was
hoping there was some easier way.

Thanks
Noah

Re: How Do I Debug a Boot Error?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Noah,

Noah Lavine <noah.b.lavine@gmail.com> writes:

> I've managed to get Guile to give me this error when it starts up:
>
> ;;; compiling /Users/noah/Desktop/guile/guile/module/language/objcode/spec.scm
> guile: uncaught throw to wrong-type-arg: (#f Wrong type (expecting
> ~A): ~S (exact integer (#t #<catch-closure 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure
> 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)) ((#t #<catch-closure
> 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)))

What does “make -C module” do?  What about rebuilding all the ‘.go’
files?

I would first try to get back to a working state, will all .go files
compiled, and then find out which change triggered the faulty behavior.
FWIW...

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: How Do I Debug a Boot Error?

[Andy Wingo]

Hi Noah,

On Fri 17 Dec 2010 20:33, Noah Lavine <noah.b.lavine@gmail.com> writes:

> ;;; compiling /Users/noah/Desktop/guile/guile/module/language/objcode/spec.scm
> guile: uncaught throw to wrong-type-arg: (#f Wrong type (expecting
> ~A): ~S (exact integer (#t #<catch-closure 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure
> 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)) ((#t #<catch-closure
> 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)))
>
> How should I debug such a thing?

Wellllllllll, it should not be so bad -- I mean this is really terrible
feedback, and no one should see that.

But that said, run it as meta/gdb-uninstalled-guile, break on
scm_ithrow, and then call scm_backtrace from with the breakpoint
handler.

Be on the lookout for a general solution, too; this error message is
terrible.

Andy
-- 
http://wingolog.org/

Re: How Do I Debug a Boot Error?

[Noah Lavine]

Hello,

Thank you both! As it turned out, this was the issue that was caused
by the update to Gnulib, so the error is currently gone.

However, I realize that in general it would be great to have better
error messages in situations like this. I might be able to re-break my
Guile some time and try to make it give better messages.

Noah

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
> Hi Noah,
>
> On Fri 17 Dec 2010 20:33, Noah Lavine <noah.b.lavine@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> ;;; compiling /Users/noah/Desktop/guile/guile/module/language/objcode/spec.scm
>> guile: uncaught throw to wrong-type-arg: (#f Wrong type (expecting
>> ~A): ~S (exact integer (#t #<catch-closure 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure
>> 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)) ((#t #<catch-closure
>> 1037f88a0> #<catch-closure 1037f8880> #<catch-closure 1037f8860>)))
>>
>> How should I debug such a thing?
>
> Wellllllllll, it should not be so bad -- I mean this is really terrible
> feedback, and no one should see that.
>
> But that said, run it as meta/gdb-uninstalled-guile, break on
> scm_ithrow, and then call scm_backtrace from with the breakpoint
> handler.
>
> Be on the lookout for a general solution, too; this error message is
> terrible.
>
> Andy
> --
> http://wingolog.org/
>