It seems that we can't make static builds with actual ghc and its core libraries. Explain if I'm wrong but here is an example with a small LibTest.hs file you want build as static library: > module LibTest > where > > func :: String > func = "42" Normally, ghc would need to link it with ghc-prim for String. To do so, this library should have been compiled with -fPIC. Compiling it with `ghc -shared -static -fPIC -o libTest.so LibTest.hs` gives the following result: > Linking libTest.so ... > /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.9.3/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: /usr/lib64/ghc-7.10.3/ghcpr_8TmvWUcS1U1IKHT0levwg3/libHSghc-prim-0.4.0.0-8TmvWUcS1U1IKHT0levwg3.a(CString__4.o): relocation R_X86_64_32S against `stg_upd_frame_info' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC > /usr/lib64/ghc-7.10.3/ghcpr_8TmvWUcS1U1IKHT0levwg3/libHSghc-prim-0.4.0.0-8TmvWUcS1U1IKHT0levwg3.a: error adding symbols: Bad value > collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status I also tried to do the same with dev-haskell/parsec. Is there a way to compile these with -fPIC without affecting this CFLAG to the portage global one?
This problem is at least known.. quoting from the GHC docs: In principle you can use -shared without -dynamic in the link step. That means to statically link the rts all the base libraries into your new shared library. This would make a very big, but standalone shared library. On most platforms however that would require all the static libraries to have been built with -fPIC so that the code is suitable to include into a shared library and we do not do that at the moment. You can use the HCFLAGS variable to set Haskell-only compiler flags, but I would be surprised if that seeps down into the GHC build system itself.
There is no difference between: - build a shared C library of static C libraries - build a shared haskell library of static haskell libraries As Michael said you can do the both things by building everything explicitly as -fPIC. In theory you just need to set HFLAGS=-fPIC. I've made it pass HCFLAGS to ghc itself as well (at least 7.10.3 has it) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/dev-lang/ghc/ghc-7.10.3.ebuild#n495 I don't remember how much I tested it last time. I have vague recollection that it worked. After HCFLAGS change you'll need to rebuild ghc and all the libraries you want as PIC. There might be a few fixes upstream i've forgot to pull to apply -fPIC properly on all artifacts ghc tries to build but things should work. Side note: you necessarily don't have to link statically into a shared library. You can pull all shared libs in a single directory and use -runpath on an executable to pull things in. Something like https://trofi.github.io/posts/144-ghc-and-static-linkage.html Does it make any sense?
