ASDF config file under Windows

[Greg Bennett]

I seem to have forgotten to send this to the asdf-devel list, in case 
anyone is interested:

In the meantime, Robert's suggestion of looking at

(uiop:xdg-data-dirs "config/")

yielded a list containing C:\\Users\\Greg\\AppData\\Roaming\\config\ and 
C:\\ProgramData\\Application Data\\config\

On the basis of no hard evidence, I took it that the latter is where 
applications rather than humans would put things.
I worked my way down the former, creating directories and files as 
needed. I had to do some of this in a terminal
since my W11 would not show hidden directories or files (despite having 
set them to be shown in the Views menu).

The result is that gb-source.conf as described below now lives in

C:\\Users\\Greg\\AppData\\Roaming\\config\\common-lisp\\source-registry.conf.d\

In a brand new Allegro, with (require :asdf) I can now issue 
(asdf:load-system "gb-a") and have
it run correctly.

I have not tried the other possibility, being satisfied, and relieved, 
that one works!

Thanks Robert for your time, patience and suggestion, and Marco for the 
pointer to CL-FAD which I have used
in other circumstances.

Cheers
Greg
On 2023-06-03 11:57, Marco Antoniotti wrote:
> Ahem.  Shameless plug: https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/mantoniotti/CLAD
>
> Cheers
>
> MA
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 3, 2023 at 5:28 PM Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.info> wrote:
>
>     Dear Greg,
>
>     Thanks for the kind words! I am not sure why I didn't see your
>     post on ASDF-devel, but I didn't. And I have seen several requests
>     for moderation, so the list seems live. In case my response is
>     interesting to the group, I am responding to the list as well.
>
>     A couple of disclaimers: (1) I haven't used Windows in more than a
>     decade, and (2) I don't use these configuration files. I find I'm
>     happier to keep all of my lisp configuration in lisp configuration
>     files (|clinit.cl <http://clinit.cl>|, |.sbclrc|, etc. -- indeed I
>     point all of those at one single |lisp-config.lisp| file), instead
>     of having to hunt through multiple files in multiple locations for
>     this information. So take anything I say with more than a grain of
>     salt (given your cardiologist approves!).
>
>     That said, these config files are placed according to the XDG
>     standard which... as far as I can tell only applies to linux, and
>     not to either Windows or MacOS. So there's code in ASDF/UIOP that
>     extends XDG to other platforms. ASDF documentation about XDG can
>     be found here
>     <https://asdf.common-lisp.dev/asdf.html#XDG-base-directory>.
>
>     I don't understand Windows enough to understand this piece of text
>     from the ASDF manual:
>
>         Since support for querying the Windows registry is not
>         possible to do in reasonable amounts of portable Common Lisp
>         code, ASDF 3 relies on the environment variables that Windows
>         usually exports, and are hopefully in synch with the Windows
>         registry. If you care about the details, see
>         uiop/configuration.lisp and don’t hesitate to suggest
>         improvements.
>
>     The relevant code may be found in uiop/configuration.lisp
>     <https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf/-/blob/release/uiop/configuration.lisp>.
>     It looks like invoking the functions |uiop:xdg-config-home| and
>     |uiop:xdg-config-pathnames| might help you figure out where ASDF
>     is looking. But I don't really understand the discussion about the
>     registry above. I do see a bit of code that says that UIOP (and
>     thus ASDF) look for configs in the value of |(uiop:xdg-data-dirs
>     "config/")| -- maybe see what that evaluates to on your Windows box?
>
>     I hope that these snippets have been helpful, and if you find the
>     answers you seek, please send to me and ASDF-devel, so that the
>     information will be available to others.
>
>     It might be a good thing if someone with the resources would gift
>     a Windows resource to the CL Foundation to hook into
>     |common-lisp.net <http://common-lisp.net>| so that the community
>     doesn't have to rely on this kind of guesswork. I note that ASDF
>     is no longer tested on Windows at all, since I don't have access
>     to a Windows VM and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to use it
>     (nor do I have the time to learn).
>
>     Good luck!
>     R
>
>     On 2 Jun 2023, at 19:40, Greg Bennett wrote:
>
>         Good evening Robert,
>
>         Some longish time ago you were kind enough to help me with
>         ASDF matters.
>         I posted recently to asdf-devel, largely in the hope that you
>         might see it, I confess.
>
>         Web search has, so far, not been helpful, I'm afraid.
>
>         I shall quite understand if you do not reply; your inbox must
>         receive lots of this sort of thing.
>
>         I have a test system in c:/ASDF/asdf-tests/ copied from the
>         linux directory /home/gwbennett/ASDF/asdf-tests/
>
>         Under Linux in my source-registry.conf.d directory I have the
>         file gb-source.conf
>         with the one line (:tree "/home/gwbennett/ASDF/asdf-tests/")
>
>         Then in sbcl I can issue (asdf:load-system "gb-a") and all is
>         well.
>
>         I have tried various spots for gb-source.conf under Windows,
>         all without success:
>
>         c:\Users\Greg\AppData\Local\config\common-lisp\source-registry.conf.d\
>
>         c:\Users\Greg\
>
>         c:\Users\Greg\AppData\
>
>         c:\Users\Greg\AppData\Local\
>
>         If I issue, old style,  (push "c:/ASDF/asdf-tests/"
>         asdf:*central-registry*) then all is well.
>
>         Perhaps there is no place for a config file under W!
>
>         Cheers
>
>         Greg
>
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