Re: [bug#62047] [PATCH 0/2] '--with-input' & co. no longer replace hidden packages

["Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>]

Hi Greg,

(It’s been two months but I completely missed this message.)

Greg Hogan <code@greghogan.com> skribis:

> On Wed, Mar 8, 2023 at 7:03 AM Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> This change makes things like:
>>
>>   guix build --with-input=guile=guile-next guix -n --no-grafts
>>
>> more useful and tractable.
>>
>> Low-level rewrites are still possible for packages not marked
>> as hidden in 'commencement.scm', such as glibc:
>>
>>   guix build --with-latest=glibc hello -n
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Ludo'.
>>
>> Ludovic Courtès (2):
>>   packages: Use SRFI-71 instead of SRFI-11.
>>   packages: 'package-input-rewriting/spec' ignores hidden packages.

[...]

> This has broken, for example, building clang with a newer version of
> gcc using package-input-rewriting/spec.

As in:

   guix build clang --with-c-toolchain=clang=gcc-toolchain@12

?  Or some other command?

> What do you think of adding a hidden? property to enable the old
> behavior?

Maybe, but I’m not sure I fully understand the problem.

> Alternatively, why are gcc, binutils, and libc used as build-time
> dependencies rather than gcc-toolchain? gcc-toolchain could be
> rewritten as a non-hidden package and use of the toolchain would
> seemingly better support profiles created with
> package->development-manifest.

We could replace gcc, binutils, etc. with just ‘gcc-toolchain’; this
will need testing of course, but I cannot think of any issue it would
cause.  (That’s a ‘core-updates’ change though.)

Thanks,
Ludo’.