Building multiple backends for Raku fails

Question

After reading README.md at https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo specifically here, I ventured on building multiple backends for rakudo.

I used 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04 to do that. First I installed

• build essential, libencode-perl
• default-jdk to prepare the machine for compiling rakudo.

After cloning the repo, when I run the command perl Configure.pl --backends=moar,jvm --prefix=/usr, I get the following error:

root@1145eac1ed77:/rakudo# perl Configure.pl --backends=moar,jvm --prefix=/usr
No pre-existing installed file found at /usr/bin/nqp-m
No pre-existing installed file found at /usr/bin/nqp-j
No pre-existing installed file found at /usr/bin/nqp-m
No pre-existing installed file found at /usr/bin/nqp-j
Use of uninitialized value $str in substitution (s///) at /rakudo/3rdparty/nqp-configure/lib/NQP/Config.pm line 1420.
Use of uninitialized value $str in substitution (s///) at /rakudo/3rdparty/nqp-configure/lib/NQP/Config.pm line 1421.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 361.
Use of uninitialized value in quotemeta at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 371.
Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 371.
Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 371.
Use of uninitialized value in quotemeta at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 373.
Use of uninitialized value in sprintf at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 414.
Redundant argument in sprintf at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 414.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 423.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 423.
Using /usr/bin/nqp-m (version  / MoarVM ).
Use of uninitialized value in sprintf at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 428.
Redundant argument in sprintf at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 428.
===SORRY!===
  jvm::runtime.jars value not available from /usr/bin/nqp-j --show-config.

  To automatically clone (git) and build a copy of NQP 2020.02.1-154-ga7b0b7be2,
  try re-running Configure.pl with the '--gen-moar' option.
  Or, use '--prefix=' to explicitly specify the path where the NQP and MoarVM
  executables can be found that are use to build Rakudo. at /rakudo/3rdparty/nqp-configure/lib/NQP/Config.pm line 192.
 at /rakudo/3rdparty/nqp-configure/lib/NQP/Config.pm line 34.
        NQP::Config::__ANON__("===SORRY!===\x{a}  jvm::runtime.jars value not available from /us"...) called at /rakudo/3rdparty/nqp-configure/lib/NQP/Config.pm line 192
        NQP::Config::sorry(NQP::Config::Rakudo=HASH(0x55e4cb9c5258), "jvm::runtime.jars value not available from /usr/bin/nqp-j --s"..., "\x{a}To automatically clone (git) and build a copy of NQP 2020.02"..., "try re-running Configure.pl with the '--gen-moar' option.", "Or, use '--prefix=' to explicitly specify the path where the "..., "executables can be found that are use to build Rakudo.") called at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 576
        NQP::Config::Rakudo::post_active_backends(NQP::Config::Rakudo=HASH(0x55e4cb9c5258)) called at /rakudo/3rdparty/nqp-configure/lib/NQP/Config.pm line 660
        NQP::Config::configure_active_backends(NQP::Config::Rakudo=HASH(0x55e4cb9c5258)) called at /rakudo/tools/lib/NQP/Config/Rakudo.pm line 473
        NQP::Config::Rakudo::configure_active_backends(NQP::Config::Rakudo=HASH(0x55e4cb9c5258)) called at Configure.pl line 102

How can it be fixed?

I was wondering what ALL in the command perl Configure.pl --backends=ALL refers to.

There was a project (still there merged in master I guess) Rakudo.js here and here. Is this the Javascript backend? Does that ALL means moar, jvm and Javascript backends?

Answer 1

As pointed out by @ugexe, I was missing --gen-moar in my command.

For future reference, I want to document what I learned after repeated attempts of trying to build Rakudo.

Moar and JVM backends

---

For building moar and jvm backends you need the dependencies

apt-get install -y gcc \
        libc6-dev \
        libencode-perl \
        wget \
        libzstd-dev \
        default-jdk \
        make

and run the command

perl Configure.pl --prefix=/usr --gen-moar --backends=moar,jvm --relocatable

for building. After the successful build, you will get rakudo-m, rakudo-gdb-m, rakudo-valgrind-m, rakudo-lldb-m for moar backend and rakudo-j, rakudo-debug-j for jvm backends.

Javascript and Moar backends

---

You cannot build isolated javascript backend. When building the js backend you must also build moar. So to build javascript backend, the command to build will be,

perl Configure.pl --prefix=/usr --gen-moar --backends=moar,js --relocatable

The extra dependencies to build javascript backend is availability of nodejs, g++ and npm which can be obtained by

apt-get install gcc g++ \
        libc6-dev \
        libencode-perl \
        wget \
        libzstd-dev \
        nodejs \
        npm \
        make

But while building javascript backend, I got the following error,

'/usr/bin/perl' tools/build/npm-install-or-link.pl . src/vm/js/nqp-runtime nqp-runtime 
Can't exec "npm": No such file or directory at tools/build/npm-install-or-link.pl line 18.
=== SORRY! === `npm install /rakudo/nqp/src/vm/js/nqp-runtime` failed with exit code -1 (72057594037927935)
make: *** [Makefile:852: js-deps] Error 255

Search reveals that

If you are developing nqp-js, you may want to pass the --link option to configure to have the nqp-runtime linked instead of installed

Though there is no problem building isolated NQP. I am unsure how to npm link while automating the build of rakudo.

ALL backends

---

I learnt that ALL indeed means moar, jvm and js backends. This is confirmed when you run the command

perl Configure.pl --prefix=/usr --gen-moar --backends=ALL --relocatable

you see the following running in your terminal:

/usr/bin/perl Configure.pl --prefix=/usr --make-install --git-protocol=https --relocatable --no-ignore-errors --silent-build --no-force-rebuild --backends=moar,jvm,js --gen-moar

The dependencies for this will be

apt-get install gcc g++ \
        libc6-dev \
        libencode-perl \
        wget \
        libzstd-dev \
        default-jdk \
        nodejs \
        npm \
        make

If Javascript backend can be successfully built by resolving npm link issue above, I am sure all backends: moar, jvm and javascript can be built.

So the issue left here is how to npm link while building rakudo. Hope somebody's expert help will resolve this issue.