How do I get haxe to generate externs? - haxe

I am writing haxe code which I want to compile to an arbitrary target as a module and then use the results from another module compiled for this same target. I don’t want to handle this the “Haxe way” (which is to fully inline all libraries at compiletime). Instead I want to be able to write distinct Haxe modules and reference them with full type safety without inlining between the modules. The natural way to do this would be to have both source Haxe files and a separate directory of “headers” filled with extern describing the public API of my module, with these externs somehow automatically generated so that they don’t need to be manually maintained.
I cannot figure out how to get Haxe to emit externs. It would make sense to me if haxe-externs were an actual “target platform” so that I could do something like:
$ haxe ClassName -hxe externsoutdir
It would make less sense but still be acceptable if one of the -D flags like -D dump (which seems to sort of get one part of the way there) or some imaginary, nonexistent -D dump-externs existed. Then you could generate externs while compiling to your favorite target:
$ haxe ClassName -js outfile.js -D shallow-expose -D dump-externs=externsoutdir
The idea is to take a class definition like this:
#:expose
class ClassName {
function quack() {
trace('quack');
}
}
and emit something like this in a separate directory:
extern class ClassName {
function quack():Void;
}
so that I can consume it from another module like this:
#:expose
class MyClassName extends ClassName {
override function quack() {
super.quack();
trace('…and again I say “quack”');
}
}
$ haxe -cp path\to\externsoutdir MyClassName -js outfile.js -D shallow-expose
It would only make sense to generate externs for things decorated with #:expose or some other decorator.
I will figure out how to wrap the emitted modules to load each other correctly. That’s easy. The hard part is generating the extern definitions—shouldn’t Haxe already have a way to do this?
Is there already some tool or built-in way I’m missing to do this? When Googling, all I see are projects that supposedly help with generating externs for existing JavaScript libraries. But that’s not my use case…

Update: --gen-hx-classes was removed sometime aroudn Haxe 4.0.0-rc3. Apparently the functionality still exists secretly as -D gen-hx-classes, but beware, if you rely on this, it seems like its going away.
I believe --gen-hx-classes option might be what you're looking for. Oddly I don't see it in the compiler flags list.
I use it in a modular JavaScript build system that is similar to what you're talking about.
I believe it creates a directory of .hx files that are externs for every class generated by the build (including those from the Haxe standard library.) Actually, getting duplicates of the classes in the standard library may be a problem you will face.
You may also need to use #:keep (or the related macro) to ensure dead code elimination doesn't remove things the other build will need.
You might also need to exclude a class from one or the other builds, e.g. --macro 'exclude("haxe.io.Input")' (or, excludeFile is actually more performant for a whole list of exclusions.)

Related

Haxe: how to keep unused class from being eliminated

I have classes that are never directly mentioned in other code, but only accessed using Type.resolveClass. I want them to be compiled and included in the app, but I can't get how to do this. I thought that #:keep (or #:keepSub) is exactly for this, but it does not work as I expected. This is what I do:
Main.hx:
package;
//import Foo; //uncomment this line to make it work
class Main {
static function main() trace(Type.resolveClass('Foo'));
}
Foo.hx:
package;
#:keep class Foo {}
But this traces null (I've tested JS and Flash)
Even if I compile with -dce no it still traces null.
Not sure if it's a compiler issue or I do not understand how it works.
This is not a compiler issue, it's correct behavior. If a module is never imported, it is never included in compilation to begin with. The compiler never gets to see the #:keep.
A common workaround for this is to use --macro include('package') (see Compiler.include()), which forces all modules in package to be compiled.
Note that a wildcard import (import package.*;) won't work, since wildcard imports are lazy:
When using wildcard imports on a package the compiler does not eagerly process all modules in that package. This means that these modules are never actually seen by the compiler unless used explicitly and are then not part of the generated output.
#:keep and #:keepSub only keep classes. In your case, Foo has never been included in the compilation so the compiler has nothing to keep.
You can list more than one entry point for your application in your hxml (or in your haxe ... command) to include some classes: haxe -cp src -main MainFoo Foo --interp will find Foo. (more on --interp here: http://old.haxe.org/doc/compiler#macro-options)
You can also include a package and all its classes with --macro include('my.package') but in your example your classes are on the root package and I don't know if you can include this one.
More info on include: http://api.haxe.org/haxe/macro/Compiler.html#include

How can I include additional modules in a NodeJS custom binary?

I am building a custom binary of NodeJS from the latest code base for an embedded system. I have a couple modules that I would like to ship as standard with the binary - or even run a custom script the is compiled into the binary and can be invoked through a command line option.
So two questions:
1) I vaguely remember that node allowed to include custom modules during build time but I went through the latest 5.9.0 configure script and I can't see anything related - or maybe I am missing it.
2) Did someone already do something similar? If yes, what were the best practices you came up with?
I am not looking for something like Electron or other binary bundlers but actually building into the node binary.
Thanks,
Andy
So I guess I figure it out much faster that I thought.
For anyone else, you can add any NPM module to it and just add the actual source files to the node.gyp configuration file.
Compile it and run the custom binary. It's all in there now.
> var cmu = require("cmu");
undefined
> cmu
{ version: [Function] }
> cmu.version()
'It worked!'
> `
After studying this for quite a while, I have to say that the flyandi's answer is not quite true. You cannot add any NPM module just by adding it to the node.gyp.
You can only add pure JavaScript modules this way. To be able to embed a C++ module (I deliberately don't use the word "native", because that one is quite ambiguous in nodeJS terminology - just look at the sources).
To summarize this:
To embed a JS module to your custom nodejs, just add it in the library_files section of the node.gyp file. Also note that it should be placed within the lib folder, otherwise you'll have troubles requiring the module. That's because the name/path listed in node.gyp / library_files is used to encode the id of the module in the node_javascript.cc intermediate file which is then used when searching for the built-in modules.
To embed a native module is much more difficult. The best way I have found so far is to build the module as a static library instead of dynamic, which for cmake(-js) based module you can achieve by changing the SHARED parameter to STATIC like this:
add_library(${PROJECT_NAME} STATIC ${SRC})
instead of:
add_library(${PROJECT_NAME} SHARED ${SRC})
And also changing the suffix:
set_target_properties(
${PROJECT_NAME}
PROPERTIES
PREFIX ""
SUFFIX ".lib") /* instead of .node */
Then you can link it from node.gyp by adding this section:
'link_settings': {
'libraries' : [
"path/to/my/library.lib",
#...add other static dependencies
],
},
(how to do this with node-gyp based project should be quite ease to google)
This allows you to build the module, but you won't be able to require it, because require() function in node can only be used to load built-in JS modules, external JS modules or external dynamic node modules. But now we have a built-in C++ module. Well, lot of node integrated modules are C++, but they always have a JS wrapper in /lib, and those wrappers they use process.binding() to load the C++ module. That is, process.binding() is sort of a require() function for integrated C++ modules.
That said, we also need to call require.binding() instead of require to load our integrated module. To be able to do that, we have to make our module "built-in" first.
We can do that by replacing
NODE_MODULE(mymodule, InitAll)
int the module definition with
NODE_BUILTIN_MODULE_CONTEXT_AWARE(mymodule, InitAll)
which will register it as internal module and from now on we can process.binding() it.
Note that NODE_BUILTIN_MODULE_CONTEXT_AWARE is not defined in node.h as NODE_MODULE but in node_internals.h so you either have to include that one, or copy the macro definition over to your cpp file (the first one is of course better because the nodejs API tends to change quite often...).
The last thing we need to do is to list our newly integrated module among the others so that the node knows to initialize them (that is include them within the list of modules used when searching for the modules loaded with process.binding()). In node_internals.h there is this macro:
#define NODE_BUILTIN_STANDARD_MODULES(V) \
V(async_wrap) \
V(buffer) \
V(cares_wrap) \
...
So just add the your module to the list the same way as the others V(mymodule).
I might have forgotten some step, so ask in the comments if you think I have missed something.
If you wonder why would anyone even want to do this... You can come up with several reasons, but here's one most important to me: Those package managers used to pack your project within one executable (like pkg or nexe) work only with node-gyp based modules. If you, like me, need to use cmake based module, the final executable won't work...

How to prevent dead-code removal of utility libraries in Haxe?

I've been tasked with creating conformance tests of user input, the task if fairly tricky and we need very high levels of reliability. The server runs on PHP, the client runs on JS, and I thought Haxe might reduce duplicative work.
However, I'm having trouble with deadcode removal. Since I am just creating helper functions (utilObject.isMeaningOfLife(42)) I don't have a main program that calls each one. I tried adding #:keep: to a utility class, but it was cut out anyway.
I tried to specify that utility class through the -main switch, but I had to add a dummy main() method and this doesn't scale beyond that single class.
You can force the inclusion of all the files defined in a given package and its sub packages to be included in the build using a compiler argument.
haxe --macro include('my.package') ..etc
This is a shortcut to the macro.Compiler.include function.
As you can see the signature of this function allows you to do it recursive and also exclude packages.
static include (pack:String, rec:Bool = true, ?ignore:Array<String>, ?classPaths:Array<String>):Void
I think you don't have to use #:keep in that case for each library class.
I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, I hope it helps.
Otherwise this could be helpful checks:
Is it bad that the code is cut away if you don't use it?
It could also be the case some code is inlined in the final output?
Compile your code using the compiler flag -dce std as mentioned in comments.
If you use the static analyzer, don't use it.
Add #:keep and reference the class+function somewhere.
Otherwise provide minimal setup if you can reproduce.

erlang -import not working

I have an erlang program, compiled with rebar, after the new debian release, it won't compile anymore, complaining about this:
-import(erl_scan).
-import(erl_parse).
-import(io_lib).
saying:
bad import declaration
I don't know erlang, I am just trying to compile this thing.
Apparently something bad happened to -import recently http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2013-March/072932.html
Is there an easy way to fix this?
Well, -import(). is working but it does NOT do what you are expecting it to do. It does NOT "import" the module into your module, nor does it go out, find the module and get all the exported functions and allow you to use them without the module name. You use -import like this:
-import(lists, [map/2,foldl/3,foldr/3]).
Then you can call the explicitly imported functions without module name and the compiler syntactically transforms the call by adding the module name. So the compiler will transform:
map(MyFun, List) ===> lists:map(MyFun, List)
Note that this is ALL it does. There are no checks for whether the module exists or if the function is exported, it is a pure naive syntactic transformation. All it gives you is slightly shorter code. For this reason it is seldom used most people advise not to use it.
Note also that the unit of code for all operations is the module so the compiler does not do any inter-module checking or optimisation at all. Everything between modules like checking a modules existence or which functions it exports is done at run-time when you call a function in the other module.
No, there is no easy way to fix this. The source code has to be updated, and every reference to imported functions prefixed with the module in question. For example, every call to format should be replaced with io_lib:format, though you'd have to know which function was imported from which module.
You could start by removing the -import directives. The compilation should then fail, complaining about undefined functions. That is where you need to provide the correct module name. Look at the documentation pages for io_lib, erl_scan and erl_parse to see which functions are in which module.
Your problem is that you were using the experimental -import(Mod) directive which is part of parameterized modules. These are gone in R16B and onwards.
I often advise against using import. It hurts quick searches and unique naming of foreign calls. Get an editor which can quickly expand names.
Start by looking at what is stored in the location $ERL_LIBS, typically this points to /usr/lib/erlang/lib.

Is there any global flag for Groovy static compilation?

I know that since Groovy 2.0 there are annotations for static compilation.
However it's ease to omit such annotation by accident and still run into troubles.
Is there any way to achieve the opposite compiler behaviour, like compile static all project files by default and compile dynamic only files chosen by purpose with some kind #CompileDynamic annotation for example?
I have found some (I believe recently introduced) feature which allows doing so with Gradle.
In build.gradle file for the project containing groovy sources we need to add following lines:
compileGroovy {
configure(groovyOptions) {
configurationScript = file("$rootDir/config/groovy/compiler-config.groovy")
}
}
or compileTestGroovy { ... for applying the same to test sources. Keep in mind that neither static compilation nor type checking works well with Spock Framework though. Spock by its nature utilizes dynamic 'groovyness' a lot.
Then on a root of the project create folder config/groovy/ and a file named compiler-config.groovy within. The content of the file is as follows:
import groovy.transform.CompileStatic
withConfig(configuration) {
ast(CompileStatic)
}
Obviously path and name of the configurationScript may vary and it's up to you. It shouldn't rather go to the same src/main/groovy though as it would be mixing totally separate concerns.
The same may be done with groovy.transform.TypeChecked or any other annotation, of course.
To reverse applied behaviour on certain classes or methods then #CompileDynamic annotation or #TypeChecked(TypeCheckingMode.SKIP) respectively may be used.
I'm not sure how to achieve the same when no Gradle is in use as build tool. I may update this answer in the future with such info though.
Not at this time, but there is an open Jira issue here you can follow to watch progress for this feature
There was also a discussion about methods for doing this on the Groovy developers list

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