[m-dev.] IL, Mono and Portable .NET

[Peter Ross]

On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 12:31:06AM +1100, Jonathan Morgan wrote:
> 
>    An update on the status of DotGnu/Mono and the Mercury IL backend.
>    I have tried the patches with both DotGnu and Mono on Win32, and also
>    with Mono on Linux (DotGnu is already being covered by Julien on
>    Linux).  Both DotGnu and Mono have a C# compiler (cscc/mcs), a IL
>    compiler (ilasm) and a linker (ilalink/al).  Neither have a Managed
>    C++ compiler, which we'll have to look into after we convince the C#
>    to compile.  It can probably be cut out as unnecessary.

The managed C++ compiler should be unnecessary, I think I've removed
all the managed C++ from inside the library and runtime.  If not it's
just a matter of translating from C++ to C#.

>    DotGnu does not have the /addmodule: option to cscc, but instead it
>    has a -fmodule= option.
>    mcs supports all Microsoft csc type flags, as well as GNU type flags
>    (eg. /addmodule: and -addmodule and --addmodule)
>    DotGnu fails to build because it cannot find the mercury namespaces
>    (eg. mercury.runtime.*).

Does the runtime assembly build?  ie do you have a mercury_dotnet.dll
and mercury_il.dll in the runtime directory.

>    Mono crashes completely with the following error messages:
>    ** (C:/Programs/Programming/Mono-[1]
>    1.1.12.1/lib/mono/1.0/mcs.exe:2312): WARNING **: The following
>    assembly referenced from
>    C:\cygwin\installs\mercury-compiler-0.12.2\tmp_dir\library\bool.dll
>    could not be loaded:
>         Assembly:   mercury    (assemblyref_index=0)
>         Version:    [2]0.0.0.0
>         Public Key: 228c167d12aa0b0b
>    The assembly was not found in the Global Assembly Cache, a path listed
>    in the MONO_PATH environment variable, or in the location of the
>    executing assembly (.).
>    **
>    (C:/Programs/Programming/Mono-[3]1.1.12.1/lib/mono/1.0/mcs.exe:2312):
>    WARNING **: The class mercury.bool.bool_0 could not be loaded, used in
>    mercury, Version= [4]0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
>    PublicKeyToken=228c167d12aa0b0b
>    This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an
>    unusual way.
>    Please contact the application's support team for more information.
>    Obviously it is unable to realise that it is in the middle of building
>    the mercury assembly it is referencing.

Yes it is trying to load the mercury assembly of which in the end
bool.dll is part of.


>    Both Mono and DotGnu ilasm appear to try to build assemblies rather
>    than modules, so that MS csc complains that it should reference the
>    resultant DLLs rather than including them.  I tried building the IL
>    library with MS ilasm to see if this was the problem, but the same
>    errors occurred in cscc/mcs.  The problem appears to be that neither
>    them are able to find the namespace or the assembly mercury, as it is
>    in the middle of being built.
>    Any suggestions as to what to do next?

It still works and builds using the MS tools?  One way to continue
further would be to build the first copy of mercury.dll using these
tools and then see if you can get further.

My only suggestion is to build a small example of what you are trying to
do and the post it to the Mono and DotGNU mailing lists and see what
help you can get there.

Pete
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