Building Clasp

The build requirements of clasp must be installed before beginning the build. For each OS listed below install the packages as listed. Currently, LLVM-14 is required. If your system does not provide LLVM-14 via its package manager then you will need to build it first.

Start with a clean Clasp clone (https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp) on the main branch. Then execute the following steps…

1. Configure the system and create the build files with ./koga. ArchLinux may require ./koga --broken-stdlib due an outstanding issue with LLVM14's JSON implementation.
2. Build the system with ninja -C build
3. Install the system with sudo ninja -C build install

The default build target is cclasp-boehmprecise. This builds iclasp, then aclasp, then bclasp, then cclasp using the Boehm garbage collector in precise mode. The suffix after the dash is a called a variant. The current available variants are:

• boehm - Boehm garbage collector
• boehmprecise - Boehm garbage collector in precise mode
• boehm-d - Boehm garbage collector with debugging symbols
• boehmprecise-d - Boehm garbage collector in precise mode with debugging symbols
• preciseprep - MPS garbage collector. This is only used to analyze Clasp in preparation for the static analyzer.
• preciseprep-d - MPS garbage collector with debugging symbols. This is only used to analyze Clasp in preparation for the static analyzer.

There are many intermediate and additional targets available in the Ninja build files. The following is a list of some of the significant ones.

• install: Install the default target. If Jupyter was enabled by koga then this will install Jupyter system kernels also.
• test-[variant]: Run the Clasp regression tests on the specified variant.
• jupyter-[variant]: Install Jupyter user kernels for the specified variant. The clasp binaries used will be the ones in the build directory. This target is primarily used for using JupyterLab in a development repository.
• analyze-[boehm|boehm-d]: Run the static analyzer on the Boehm collector.

The seqan-clasp and cando extensions are compatible with koga. To enable these extensions, create a file config.sexp in the root of the clasp directory with the following contents, then execute the build instructions listed in the previous section.

(:extensions (:cando :seqan-clasp))

If the configure script does not succeed in configuring the build or if you want to adjust the settings you use a plist in config.sexp with the following values. These options can also be passed directly to koga via command line options. For example executing ./koga --debug-lexical-depth is equivalent to adding :debug-lexical-depth t to the plist in config.sexp. Extensions can be enabled by passing the names separated with commas, i.e. ./koga --extensions=cando,seqan-clasp

• :skip-sync — A list of repository names to avoid syncing. This is useful if you are doing development on an extension such as Cando.
• :build-mode — Define how clasp is built. [default :faso]
  • :bitcode compiles to bitcode and thinLTO is used to link everything. This gives the fastest product but linking takes a long time.
  • :object produces object files and regular linking is used. This is probably not as fast as bitcode (maybe a few percent slower) but it links fast.
  • :faso generates faso files. This is good for development.
  • :fasobc generates fasobc files.
  • :fasoll generates fasoll files.
  • :fasl generates fasl files.
• :build-path — The path for build files such as the Ninja build file. [default #P"build/"]
• :parallel-build — Build clasp in parallel. [default t]
• :prefix — Where Clasp is install. [default "usr"]
• :extensions — A list of extensions. [default nil]
• :jupyter — Enable installation of Jupyter kernels. [default nil]
• :cst — [default t]
• :clang-cpp — If t use clang-cpp otherwise use the individual clang libraries. [default t]
• :compile-file-parallel — [default t]
• :force-startup-external-linkage — Use external-linkage for startup functions. [default t]
• :unwinder — [default :gcc]
• :jobs — The number of jobs during build. If not specified then a value will be picked based on the number of CPU cores. [default nil]
• :always-inline-mps-allocations) —
• :address-sanitizer — [default nil]
• :memory-sanitizer — [default nil]
• :thread-sanitizer — [default nil]
• :debug-dtree-interpreter — Generate dtree interpreter log [default nil]
• :debug-dtrace-lock-probe — Add a Dtrace probe for mutex lock acquisition [default nil]
• :debug-stackmaps — print messages about stackmap registration [default nil]
• :debug-assert — Turn on DEBUG_ASSERT [default t]
• :debug-assert-type-cast — Turn on type checking when passing arguments [default nil]
• :source-debug — Allow LOG messages to print - works with CLASP_DEBUG environment variable [default nil]
• :debug-jit-log-symbols — Generate a log of JITted symbols in /tmp/clasp-symbols-<pid> [default nil]
• :debug-guard — Add guards around allocated objects [default nil]
• :debug-guard-validate — Add quick checking of guards [default nil]
• :debug-guard-backtrace — Add allocation backtraces to guards [default nil]
• :debug-guard-exhaustive-validate — Add exhaustive, slow, checks of guards [default nil]
• :debug-trace-interpreted-closures — [default nil]
• :debug-environments — [default nil]
• :debug-release — Turn off optimization for a few C++ functions; undef this to optimize everything [default nil]
• :debug-cache — Debug the dispatch caches - see cache.cc [default nil]
• :debug-bitunit-container — Prints debug info for bitunit containers [default nil]
• :debug-lexical-depth — Generate tests for lexical closure depths [default nil]
• :debug-flow-tracker — Record small backtraces to track flow [default nil]
• :debug-dynamic-binding-stack — dynamic variable binding debugging [default nil]
• :debug-values — turn on printing (values x y z) values when core:*debug-values* is not nil [default nil]
• :debug-ihs — [default nil]
• :debug-track-unwinds — Count cc_unwind calls and report in TIME [default nil]
• :debug-no-unwind — Debug intrinsics that say they don't unwind but actually do. [default nil]
• :debug-startup — Generate per-thread logs in /tmp/dispatch-history/** of the slow path of fastgf [default nil]
• :debug-rehash-count — Keep track of the number of times each hash table has been rehashed [default nil]
• :debug-monitor — generate logging messages to a file in /tmp for non-hot code [default nil]
• :debug-monitor-support — Must be enabled with other options - do this automatically? [default nil]
• :debug-memory-profile — Profile memory allocations total size and counter [default nil]
• :debug-bclasp-lisp — Generate debugging frames for all bclasp code - like declaim [default nil]
• :debug-cclasp-lisp — Generate debugging frames for all cclasp code - like declaim [default t]
• :debug-count-allocations — count per-thread allocations of instances of classes [default nil]
• :debug-compiler — Turn on compiler debugging [default nil]
• :debug-verify-modules — Verify LLVM modules before using them [default nil]
• :debug-long-call-history — The GF call histories used to blow up - this triggers an error if they get too long [default nil]
• :debug-bounds-assert — check bounds [default t]
• :debug-gfdispatch — debug call history manipulation [default nil]
• :debug-fastgf — generate slow gf dispatch logging and write out dispatch functions to /tmp/dispatch-history-** [default nil]
• :debug-slot-accessors — GF accessors have extra debugging added to them [default nil]
• :debug-threads — [default nil]
• :debug-stores — insert a call to cc_validate_tagged_pointer everytime something is written to memory [default nil]
• :debug-ensure-valid-object — Defines ENSURE_VALID_OBJECT(x)->x macro - sprinkle these around to run checks on objects [default nil]
• :debug-quick-validate — quick/cheap validate if on and comprehensive validate if not [default nil]
• :debug-mps-size — check that the size of the MPS object will be calculated properly by obj_skip [default nil]
• :debug-mps-underscanning — Very expensive - does a mps_arena_collect=/=mps_arena_release for each allocation [default nil]
• :debug-dont-optimize-bclasp — Optimize bclasp by editing llvm-ir [default nil]
• :debug-recursive-allocations — Catch allocations within allocations - MPS hates these [default nil]
• :debug-alloc-alignment — catch misaligned allocations [default nil]
• :debug-llvm-optimization-level-0 — [default nil]
• :debug-slow — Code runs slower due to checks - undefine to remove checks [default nil]
• :human-readable-bitcode — [default nil]
• :debug-compile-file-output-info — [default nil]
• :config-var-cool — mps setting [default t]
• :ar — Pathname of ar binary. [default nil]
• :cc — Pathname of cc binary. [default nil]
• :cxx — Pathname of cxx binary. [default nil]
• :git — Pathname of git binary. [default nil]
• :llvm-config — Pathname of llvm-config binary. [default nil]
• :nm — Pathname of nm binary. [default nil]
• :pkg-config — Pathname of pkg-config binary. [default nil]