cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Tim Lee]

I have installed cl-asdf using `guix install cl-asdf`. The installation
was successful. However, when I looked into the
~/.guix-profile/share/common-lisp/source/asdf/ directory, I only see one
file: asdf.lisp.

Is this normal? I was expecting to get an `asdf.asd` file as well. I am
running Ubuntu 20.04 as my base system. I want to use Guix's cl-asdf
3.3.4 instead of the old ASDF 3.3.1 bundled in SBCL (which was installed
using Ubuntu's package manager). ASDF's documentation (section 3.3
Upgrading ASDF) has instructions for what I want to do:

> If your implementation already provides ASDF 3 or later (and it
> should), but you want a more recent ASDF version than your
> implementation provides, then you just need to ensure the more recent
> ASDF is installed in a configured path, like any other system. We
> recommend you download an official tarball or checkout a release from
> git into ~/common-lisp/asdf/. (see Configuring ASDF to find your
> systems).
>
> Once the source code for ASDF is installed, you don't need any extra
> step to load it beyond the usual (require "asdf"): ASDF 3 will
> automatically look whether an updated version of itself is available
> amongst the regularly configured systems, before it compiles anything
> else.

The absence of an asd file in cl-asdf means that I cannot use Guix's
cl-asdf in the manner describe above. The reason is because the existing
ASDF (the one bundled in SBCL that was installed using Ubuntu's package
manager) will not be able to find Guix's cl-asdf if cl-asdf doesn't have
an *.asd file.

I have tried Nix before, and Nix's "asdf" package includes an `asdf.asd`
file. I am new to Guix. Am I missing anything?

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Guillaume Le Vaillant]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2336 bytes --]

Tim Lee <progscriptclone@gmail.com> skribis:

> I have installed cl-asdf using `guix install cl-asdf`. The installation
> was successful. However, when I looked into the
> ~/.guix-profile/share/common-lisp/source/asdf/ directory, I only see one
> file: asdf.lisp.
>
> Is this normal? I was expecting to get an `asdf.asd` file as well. I am
> running Ubuntu 20.04 as my base system. I want to use Guix's cl-asdf
> 3.3.4 instead of the old ASDF 3.3.1 bundled in SBCL (which was installed
> using Ubuntu's package manager). ASDF's documentation (section 3.3
> Upgrading ASDF) has instructions for what I want to do:
>
>> If your implementation already provides ASDF 3 or later (and it
>> should), but you want a more recent ASDF version than your
>> implementation provides, then you just need to ensure the more recent
>> ASDF is installed in a configured path, like any other system. We
>> recommend you download an official tarball or checkout a release from
>> git into ~/common-lisp/asdf/. (see Configuring ASDF to find your
>> systems).
>>
>> Once the source code for ASDF is installed, you don't need any extra
>> step to load it beyond the usual (require "asdf"): ASDF 3 will
>> automatically look whether an updated version of itself is available
>> amongst the regularly configured systems, before it compiles anything
>> else.
>
> The absence of an asd file in cl-asdf means that I cannot use Guix's
> cl-asdf in the manner describe above. The reason is because the existing
> ASDF (the one bundled in SBCL that was installed using Ubuntu's package
> manager) will not be able to find Guix's cl-asdf if cl-asdf doesn't have
> an *.asd file.
>
> I have tried Nix before, and Nix's "asdf" package includes an `asdf.asd`
> file. I am new to Guix. Am I missing anything?

So far the cl-asdf package in Guix is only used to update the ASDF
bundled in the sbcl, ecl, ccl and clisp packages, so that they all use
the same version of ASDF.

Instead of using 'require', it should work if you just load the file:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(load (merge-pathnames ".guix-profile/share/common-lisp/source/asdf/asdf.lisp"
                       (user-homedir-pathname)))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Or you could use the sbcl from Guix instead of the Ubuntu one.

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 247 bytes --]

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Tim Lee]

> So far the cl-asdf package in Guix is only used to update the ASDF
> bundled in the sbcl, ecl, ccl and clisp packages, so that they all use
> the same version of ASDF.
> 
> Instead of using 'require', it should work if you just load the file:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (load (merge-pathnames ".guix-profile/share/common-lisp/source/asdf/asdf.lisp"
>                        (user-homedir-pathname)))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> Or you could use the sbcl from Guix instead of the Ubuntu one.

Okay. Thank you for the explanation. I just found it a bit strange that
a cl-* package does not contain an asd file, especially when one is
already provided by the upstream
(https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf/). Interesting that the ASDF
package itself has no asd file!

Perhaps the maintainer(s) should consider including an asd file to avoid
surprises like this.

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Pierre Neidhardt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 320 bytes --]

Actually I find it normal that ASDF has no .asd file, since it's the
Lisp code that enables support for reading the .asd format!

Had ASDF an .asd, we would have a bootstrap problem!

ASDF is typically loaded with Common Lisp standard `require' function.

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 511 bytes --]

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Tim Lee]

> Actually I find it normal that ASDF has no .asd file [...]

I am new to Guix, so I'm not sure what's considered "normal" here.

Guix is the only package manager I know that does not include an .asd
file for ASDF. Nix's asdf includes an asd file. Debian and Ubuntu's
cl-asdf includes an asd file. FreeBSD's cl-asdf includes an asd file.
The upstream includes an asd file ...

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Pierre Neidhardt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 154 bytes --]

My bad, ASDF indeed has an .asd file:

https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf/-/blob/master/asdf.asd

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 511 bytes --]

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Tim Lee]

> My bad, ASDF indeed has an .asd file:
> 
> https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf/-/blob/master/asdf.asd

So does this mean that there is a bug in Guix, or at least something
worthy of a feature request?

Re: cl-asdf: where is its asd file?

[Pierre Neidhardt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 87 bytes --]

Answering your original post, wouldn't it be easier and better to just use Guix' SBCL?

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 511 bytes --]