Re: Mystery of missing 'install' phase in guile-build-system

[Luis Felipe <sirgazil@zoho.com>]

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Hi Felix, Ekaitz,

On 26/09/24 21:26, Ekaitz Zarraga wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 2024-09-26 23:13, Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the 
> GNU System distribution. wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A piece of software of mine using the guile-build-system runs tests
>> after the 'install' phase.  A recent system update failed because there
>> is no such phase.

Sounds like what happened during my last failed upgrade 
(https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2024-09/msg00076.html).

>> Looking at the Guix source code, the 'install' phase never existed.
>> Shouldn't every build system have that phase?
>>
>> Why did the same package definition work three months ago?
>>
>> Thanks for helping with this mystery!
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Felix
>>
>
> The fast and simple answer is that the 'install phase is not 
> mandatory. The build system defines which of the steps it uses and 
> how, they don't need to have specific names.

Yeah, although that fact doesn't seem to be documented. Nor that, 
currently, if you modify the phases of a build system using, say, 
"(add-after 'install 'check check)", the "install" phase *must* exist, 
otherwise the module fails to compile. And that wasn't the case in 
previous versions of Guix.

So, maybe additional documentation might be necessary. I think the 
documentation is missing more information on how define custom build 
systems even  (?).


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