[m-dev.] "executables" in the java grade

[Paul Bone]

On Wed, Dec 03, 2014 at 03:12:40PM +1100, Julien Fischer wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've recently been experimenting with versions of the Mercury compiler built in
> the java grade.  With a little bit of fiddling about it is possible to get a
> working Mercury compiler that runs on the JVM.  One of the main bit of fiddling
> about is related to how we build "executables" in the java grade.  Currently,
> when we do
>
>     $ mmc --grade java --make foo
>
> we end up with a wrapper script (or batch file) in our current working
> directory plus a bunch of class files in Mercury\classs.  With the current
> install target in the compiler directory this ends up not working because only
> the wrapper script ends up being copied into INSTALL_PREFIX/bin, not the class
> files.  I think a better approach to handling "executables" for the java grade
> would be to generate a .jar file containing all the program's class files along
> with the wrapper script and have the wrapper script reference that instead of
> the class files in the Mercury directory.  Any objections?
>

None from me.  I think this is the correct thing to do.  However, I suggest
that there should be an option to disable this behaviour and allow users to
package up jar files manually.  They may have other .class files to put in
their jar, or they may be using Mercury in the standalone interface style.
We should also check that this works correctly for buidling libraries.


-- 
Paul Bone