Re: Specifying private repository path for compiled executables

> Not for deployment, at least for me, I strongly prefer static builds for sw distribution.
Well, yeah. For standalone distribution, static build is way to go.
But for e.g. packaging it for Gentoo,
in a form of ebuild, dynamic linking is preferred, as Gentoo
guidelines suggests. Anyway, it is nice to
have such ability, in my opinion.

> P.S. Every time I build a new Py and insert it in to PATH, all my venv.s turns into potato.
So it doesn't have an actual copy in it? Huh. Well, in case of
Chicken, I would like such isolated
environments to have all necessary binaries and libs in it.

P.S. Sorry Anton, I accidentally pushed "Reply" instead of "Reply All"

On Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 10:40 PM Anton Idukov <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi! IMO it's an interesting movement in the way of isolation of chicken hosts. Not for deployment, at least for me, I strongly prefer static builds for sw distribution.
>
> P.S. Every time I build a new Py and insert it in to PATH, all my venv.s turns into potato.
>
> вт, 2 дек. 2025 г. в 20:02, Alexey Egorov via Chicken-users <[email protected]>:
>>
>> Hello Chicken users!
>>
>> I have a program suite written in Chicken, which uses a number of
>> eggs, and I want to be able to distribute it without relying on user
>> to install all eggs by hand. Or to install them at all, since user's
>> Chicken environment is mainly aimed for development and should not be
>> affected by third party software that only uses Chicken, without
>> providing any Chicken functionality itself.
>>
>> I understand that my options in this case is either link the binary
>> statically, or provide -private-repository flag and put all the eggs'
>> dynamic libs beside my binaries. The first solution I just don't like
>> very much.
>> The -private-repository flag, which enables compiled binaries to load
>> extensions from the directory where the binary is located, which is
>> not ideal, since in case of manual installation I'd like to have my
>> binaries in /bin and libs in /var/lib or /usr/lib or something like
>> that.
>>
>> One possible solution occurred to me: what if we could have a way to
>> set -private-repository not only to the location of the compiled
>> binary, but to an arbitrary location? I tried to implement this in
>> form of new flag -private-repository-path, and it seems to work for my
>> case.
>>
>> I also think that a general solution for creating Chicken environments
>> (analogous to e.g. Python's venv) can be based on this.
>>
>> All that said, I still have some questions:
>> 1. Isn't there some more obvious already existing way to do what I
>> want, which I overlooked?
>> 2. Doesn't the solution I devised break anything? At the first glance
>> it doesn't but I still can be missing something obvious
>>
>> The patch with -private-repository-path for Chicken 5.4.0:
>> diff --git a/chicken.h b/chicken.h
>> index d0d6be20..3ad33235 100644
>> --- a/chicken.h
>> +++ b/chicken.h
>> @@ -1566,10 +1566,14 @@ typedef void (C_ccall *C_proc)(C_word, C_word
>> *) C_noret;
>>  #define C_ub_i_pointer_f32_set(p, n)    (*((float *)(p)) = (n))
>>  #define C_ub_i_pointer_f64_set(p, n)    (*((double *)(p)) = (n))
>>
>> -#ifdef C_PRIVATE_REPOSITORY
>> -# define C_private_repository()
>> C_use_private_repository(C_executable_dirname())
>> +#ifdef C_PRIVATE_REPOSITORY_PATH
>> +# define C_private_repository()
>> C_use_private_repository(C_text(C_PRIVATE_REPOSITORY_PATH))
>>  #else
>> -# define C_private_repository()
>> +# ifdef C_PRIVATE_REPOSITORY
>> +#  define C_private_repository()
>> C_use_private_repository(C_executable_dirname())
>> +# else
>> +#  define C_private_repository()
>> +# endif
>>  #endif
>>
>>  #ifdef C_GUI
>> diff --git a/csc.scm b/csc.scm
>> index 1fe896b7..ee3bdfeb 100644
>> --- a/csc.scm
>> +++ b/csc.scm
>> @@ -507,7 +507,8 @@ Usage: #{csc} [OPTION ...] [FILENAME ...]
>>      -host                          compile for host when configured for
>>                                      cross-compiling
>>      -private-repository            load extensions from executable path
>> -    -deployed                      link support file to be used from a deployed
>> +    -private-repository-path PATH  load extensions from PATH
>> +    -deployed                      link support file to be used from a deployed
>>                                      executable (sets `rpath'
>> accordingly, if supported
>>                                      on this platform)
>>      -no-elevation                  embed manifest on Windows to
>> supress elevation
>> @@ -553,6 +554,9 @@ EOF
>>    (define (use-private-repository)
>>      (set! compile-options (cons "-DC_PRIVATE_REPOSITORY" compile-options)))
>>
>> +  (define (use-private-repository-path path)
>> +    (set! compile-options (cons (sprintf
>> "-DC_PRIVATE_REPOSITORY_PATH=\"~A\"" path) compile-options)))
>> +
>>    (define (generate-target-filename source-filename)
>>      (pathname-replace-extension
>>       source-filename
>> @@ -687,6 +691,10 @@ EOF
>>          (set! rest (cdr rest)) ]
>>             ((-private-repository)
>>          (use-private-repository))
>> +           ((-private-repository-path)
>> +                (check s rest)
>> +        (use-private-repository-path (car rest))
>> +        (set! rest (cdr rest)))
>>             ((-ignore-repository)
>>          (set! ignore-repository #t)
>>          (t-options arg))
>> --
>>