Original bug ID: 7688
Reporter: @jhjourdan
Assigned to: @jhjourdan
Status: closed (set by @jhjourdan on 2017-12-11T22:17:28Z)
Resolution: not a bug
Priority: normal
Severity: minor
Category: misc
Monitored by: @nojb @gasche @alainfrisch

Bug description

At the begining of the makefile is described a "hard bootstrap procedure", that is supposed to work even if the set of C primitives used by stdlib has changed.

However, in the current state, the procedure does not work and fails in the last "coreboot" phase.

I think we should solve this issue by either updating the doc of this bootstrap procedure, or even removing it (but then how one should do ?) or fixing the makefile.

Moreover, I think it would be good to test that this keep working in the future by adding a test in the CI. This is not the first time it breaks.

Steps to reproduce

In current trunk:

$ ./configure
$ make world

$ make coreboot
[add a primitive in the runtime, add call it from the stdlib]
$ make clean runtime coreall
$ make coreboot
< fails with :
../boot/ocamlrun ../boot/ocamlc -nostdlib -I ../boot -use-prims ../byterun/primitives -I .. make_opcodes.ml -o make_opcodes
File "make_opcodes.ml", line 1:
Error: Error while linking ../boot/stdlib.cma(Pervasives):
The external function `caml_foo' is not available

FWIW, the changes I made in my test to add the new primitive are:

diff --git a/byterun/misc.c b/byterun/misc.c
index 46e40992b..bd2b7a441 100644
--- a/byterun/misc.c
+++ b/byterun/misc.c
@@ -51,6 +51,11 @@ void caml_set_fields (value v, unsigned long start, unsigned long filler)

#endif /* DEBUG */

+CAMLprim value caml_foo(value x)
+{

• return x;
  +}

uintnat caml_verb_gc = 0;

void caml_gc_message (int level, char *msg, ...)
diff --git a/stdlib/pervasives.ml b/stdlib/pervasives.ml
index faa421871..69b2cdb78 100644
--- a/stdlib/pervasives.ml
+++ b/stdlib/pervasives.ml
@@ -546,3 +546,9 @@ let exit retcode =
sys_exit retcode

let _ = register_named_value "Pervasives.do_at_exit" do_at_exit
+
+
+
+
+external foo : int -> int = "caml_foo"
+let _ = ignore (foo 5)