iOS and Template Haskell

Similar to Android and Template Haskell we need wrap the GHCSlave (remote iserv) instance into an application for iOS. To provide the Template Haskell evaluation context on the iOS device.

With the Haskell Cross Compiler for iOS from yesterday, we will now build the GHCSlave iOS application.

/WARNING: Due to a bug in the x86_64 linker code, Template Haskell does not yet work with the iOS Simulator. I have marked the commands for the simulator in italic, and will remove this warning, once the linker code is fixed. Until then Template Haskell will only work for/on the device./

Prerequisites

Again we need the to build iserv-proxy and the iserv library. Please refer to the Raspberry Pi instructions if something is unclear.

After checking out the custom ghc branch:

git clone --recursive git://git.haskell.org/ghc.git
cd ghc
git remote add zw3rk https://github.com/zw3rk/ghc.git
git fetch zw3rk
git checkout -b zw3rk/my-ghc
git reset --hard zw3rk/my-ghc
git submodule update --init --recursive

we need to build the iserv-proxy with the our regular compiler:

ghc/iserv $ cabal install -flibrary -fproxy

and the iserv library with the cross compilers:

ghc/iserv $ aarch64-apple-ios-cabal install -flibrary
ghc/iserv $ x86_64-apple-ios-cabal install -flibrary

With this we now should have the iserv-proxy binary in ~/.cabal/bin and the iserv-bin library for both cross compilers.

Building GHCSlave for iOS

We need to build a static library and wrap it into a native iOS application.

The code for the GHCSlave android app can be found in the zw3rk/ghc-slave repository in the iOS folder.

In the same fashion as we built the universal library with lipo, we will build a universal GHCSlave library as well.

In the GHCSlave/iOS/GHCSlave folder we build the static library for the iOS device and simulator with -threaded and link in the iserv-bin.

aarch64-apple-ios-ghc -odir arm64 -hidir arm64 \
  -staticlib -threaded \
  -lffi -L/path/to/libffi/aarch64-apple-ios/lib \
  -o hs-libs/arm64/libhs.a -package iserv-bin \
  hs/LineBuff.hs

x86_64-apple-ios-ghc -odir x86_64 -hidir x86_64 \
  -staticlib -threaded \
  -lffi -L/path/to/libffi/x86_64-apple-ios/lib \
  -o hs-libs/x86_64/libhs.a -package iserv-bin \
  hs/LineBuff.hs

lipo -create -output hs-libs/libhs.a \
  hs-libs/arm64/libhs.a hs-libs/x86_64/libhs.a

Note: we need -threaded as the startSlave function call forkIO to start the salve in a separate thread.

Building and running the application on a device should show:

Compiling some Template Haskell

As we did when compiling Template Haskell for Android, we will use the gitrev package to embed the git revision in a label.

The sourcecode for this sample application can be found at zw3rk/hs-ios-hello-templatehaskell.

First we will need to install the patched gitrev package

git clone https://github.com/mobilehaskell/file-embed.git
(cd file-embed && armv7-linux-androideabi-cabal install)
(cd file-embed && aarch64-linux-android-cabal install)

And similar to the zw3rk/hs-ios-helloworld example from yesterday, we’ll build a library with the following Lib.hs

module Lib where

import Development.GitRev (gitHash)
import Foreign.C (CString, newCString)

foreign export ccall "gitrev" cgitrev :: IO CString

-- | turn $gitHash into a c string.
cgitrev = newCString $gitHash

compiling this into a universal library with

aarch64-apple-ios-ghc -odir arm64 -hidir arm64 \
  -staticlib \
  -L/path/to/libffi/aarch64-apple-ios/lib -lffi \
  -o hs-libs/arm64/libhs.a -package gitrev \
  hs/Lib.hs \
  -fexternal-interpreter \
  -pgmi $HOME/.cabal/bin/iserv-proxy -opti10.0.1.23 -opti5000

x86_64-apple-ios-ghc -odir x86_64 -hidir x86_64 \
  -staticlib \
  -L/path/to/libffi/x86_64-apple-ios/lib -lffi \
  -o hs-libs/x86_64/libhs.a -package gitrev \
  hs/Lib.hs \
  -fexternal-interpreter \
  -pgmi $HOME/.cabal/bin/iserv-proxy -opti10.0.1.24 -opti5000

lipo -create -output hs-libs/libhs.a \
  hs-libs/arm64/libhs.a hs-libs/x86_64/libhs.a

and linking it in Xcode, as we did yesterday, will provide us with an application that displays the git hash as expected.

We now have a functioning Haskell Compiler with Template Haskell support for iOS. /(Again for now without support for the