bug#25952: offloading empty machines file

[zimoun]

Dear,

On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 00:43, zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 22:32, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr> wrote:
>
>> The issue is that files such as /etc/guix/machines.scm (but this
>> applies equally to /etc/guix/acl & so on) are expected to evaluate
>> to a sexp.
>>
>> An empty file does not a valid sexp make, so Guix throws an
>> prickly backtrace @ your face & dies.  This is unlike most other
>> configuration formats where an empty file or one consisting
>> entirely of comments is a no-op.
>
> Hum? I am not sure to get the point.  Are we talking about this kind
> of situations, e.g.,
>
> touch /tmp/empty.scm
> guix package -m /tmp/empty.scm -p /tmp/empy
>
> or
>
> echo ";; hello" > /tmp/comment.scm
> guix package -m /tmp/comment.scm -p /tmp/comment
>
> or
>
> echo "(define x 42)" > /tmp/answer.scm
> guix package -m /tmp/answer.scm -p /tmp/answer
>
>
> ?

If we are talking about such cases, I think we can close this bug
report.


>> We should decide whether ‘’ is a valid sexp (oh dear, philosophy)
>> or throw something softer at people.
>
> Throw something more "helping" than e.g.,
>
> Backtrace:
>            1 (primitive-load "/home/simon/.config/guix/current/bin/g…")
> In guix/ui.scm:
>   1936:12  0 (run-guix-command _ . _)
>
> guix/ui.scm:1936:12: In procedure run-guix-command:
> In procedure struct-vtable: Wrong type argument in position 1
> (expecting struct): #<unspecified>
>
> ?

More helping as suggested for example in this message:

<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-09/msg00125.html>

If yes, the bug report should be renamed.  And probably goes to the
Guile bug tracker. :-)


All the best,
simon