[m-rev.] for post-commit review: grade-and-architecture-specific extensions

[Julien Fischer]

On Sat, 21 Sept 2024 at 01:13, Zoltan Somogyi <zoltan.somogyi at runbox.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 21 Sep 2024 00:56:36 +1000, Julien Fischer <jfischer at opturion.com> wrote:
> > >  :- type ext_cur_gs
> > > +    --->    ext_cur_gs_lib_init                 % ".init"
> > > +    ;       ext_cur_gs_lib_jar.                 % ".jar"
> >
> > I assume you put .jar files in the _gs category, because Java byte code
> > is not architecture specific?
>
> Yes, that's right.
>
> > However, the CIL byte code used in the.dll files
> > generated in the C# grade is similarly architecture independent,
>
> I thought .dll files generally contain ISA-specific code, so I figured
> the C# compilers we now use generated real, not virtual, machine code.

The C# compilers we use generate CIL bytecode (MS-IL) by default.
(That bytecode can be further compiled into native code, but we don't
do that for Mercury; AOT compilation options also exist for Java.)

...

> Actually, file_names.m can treat the two kinds of .dlls separately.
> We can put dlls into the _gs category as ext_cur_gs_lib_dll,
> while ext_cur_gas_lib_sh_lib_opt remains in the _gas category.
> Specifying "--shared-library-extension .dll" makes *those* .dll files
> ISA-dependent.

That seems fine.  Note that we don't currently support creating dlls
in C grades at the moment anyway.  (I think it's unlikely support
for them will ever be added, but I'd like to keep the possibility
open.)

Julien.