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| | 2 | |
| | 3 | = Idiom: distdir = |
| | 4 | |
| | 5 | Often we want to build a component multiple times in different ways. For example: |
| | 6 | |
| | 7 | * certain libraries (e.g. Cabal) are required by GHC, so we build them once with the |
| | 8 | bootstrapping compiler, and again with stage 1 once that is built. |
| | 9 | |
| | 10 | * GHC itself is built multiple times (stage 1, stage 2, maybe stage 3) |
| | 11 | |
| | 12 | * some tools (e.g. ghc-pkg) are also built once with the bootstrapping compiler, |
| | 13 | and then again using stage 1 later. |
| | 14 | |
| | 15 | In order to support multiple builds in a directory, we place all generated files in a subdirectory, called the "distdir". The distdir can be anything at all; for example in `compiler/` we name our distdirs after the stage (`stage1`, `stage2` etc.). When there is only a single build in a directory, by convention we usually call the distdir simply "dist". |
| | 16 | |
| | 17 | There is a related concept called ''ways'', which includes profiling and dynamic-linking. Multiple ways are currently part of the same "build" and use the same distdir, but in the future we might unify these concepts and give each way its own distdir. |
