Julia dislikes living under a file system path including `:`

[nsajko]

When the path that Julia lives under on the file system includes :, Julia refuses to precompile many packages, even stdlibs:

$ pwd  # contains `:`
/home/nsajko/tmp/jl/jl/pr_nsajko:any_all_vectorized_tuple_bool/julia-a6a6f6b074/bin
$ ./julia -e 'using Statistics'
  ✗ Statistics
Precompiling Statistics finished.
  0 dependencies successfully precompiled in 0 seconds
ERROR: LOAD_PATH entries cannot contain ':'
Stacktrace:
  [1] error(s::String)
    @ Base ./error.jl:44
  [2] create_expr_cache(pkg::Base.PkgId, input::String, output::String, output_o::String, concrete_deps::Vector{Pair{Base.PkgId, UInt128}}, flags::Cmd, cacheflags::Base.CacheFlags, internal_stderr::IO, internal_stdout::IO, loadable_exts::Nothing)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:3058
  [3] compilecache(pkg::Base.PkgId, path::String, internal_stderr::IO, internal_stdout::IO, keep_loaded_modules::Bool; flags::Cmd, cacheflags::Base.CacheFlags, reasons::Dict{String, Int64}, loadable_exts::Nothing)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:3202
  [4] (::Base.var"#__require_prelocked##0#__require_prelocked##1"{Base.PkgId})()
    @ Base ./loading.jl:2676
  [5] mkpidlock(f::Base.var"#__require_prelocked##0#__require_prelocked##1"{Base.PkgId}, at::String, pid::Int32; kwopts::@Kwargs{stale_age::Int64, wait::Bool})
    @ FileWatching.Pidfile ~/tmp/jl/jl/pr_nsajko:any_all_vectorized_tuple_bool/julia-a6a6f6b074/share/julia/stdlib/v1.12/FileWatching/src/pidfile.jl:93
  [6] #mkpidlock#7
    @ ~/tmp/jl/jl/pr_nsajko:any_all_vectorized_tuple_bool/julia-a6a6f6b074/share/julia/stdlib/v1.12/FileWatching/src/pidfile.jl:88 [inlined]
  [7] trymkpidlock(::Function, ::Vararg{Any}; kwargs::@Kwargs{stale_age::Int64})
    @ FileWatching.Pidfile ~/tmp/jl/jl/pr_nsajko:any_all_vectorized_tuple_bool/julia-a6a6f6b074/share/julia/stdlib/v1.12/FileWatching/src/pidfile.jl:114
  [8] #invokelatest#1
    @ ./essentials.jl:1058 [inlined]
  [9] invokelatest
    @ ./essentials.jl:1052 [inlined]
 [10] maybe_cachefile_lock(f::Base.var"#__require_prelocked##0#__require_prelocked##1"{Base.PkgId}, pkg::Base.PkgId, srcpath::String; stale_age::Int64)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:3853
 [11] maybe_cachefile_lock
    @ ./loading.jl:3850 [inlined]
 [12] __require_prelocked(pkg::Base.PkgId, env::String)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:2662
 [13] _require_prelocked(uuidkey::Base.PkgId, env::String)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:2487
 [14] macro expansion
    @ ./loading.jl:2415 [inlined]
 [15] macro expansion
    @ ./lock.jl:376 [inlined]
 [16] __require(into::Module, mod::Symbol)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:2372
 [17] #invoke_in_world#2
    @ ./essentials.jl:1091 [inlined]
 [18] invoke_in_world
    @ ./essentials.jl:1087 [inlined]
 [19] require(into::Module, mod::Symbol)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:2364
 [20] eval(m::Module, e::Any)
    @ Core ./boot.jl:485
 [21] exec_options(opts::Base.JLOptions)
    @ Base ./client.jl:295
 [22] _start()
    @ Base ./client.jl:558

To reproduce, one might need to delete $HOME/.julia/compiled or similar, to force precompilation to be attempted again.

Not a recent regression, reproduced on all of v1.10, v1.11, v1.12.

[giordano]

That's not Julia-specific, lots of tools have problems on Unix with colons in paths because of its use as separator in path lists, for example you can't have a directory containing a colon in the environment variable PATH. Quoting from the POSIX standard

Since <colon> is a separator in this context, directory names that might be used in PATH should not include a <colon> character.

Colons are historically a problem on Unix, that's what it is.

[nsajko]

Hypothetically changing the LOAD_PATH syntax could lead to a fix, but that's too breaking, I guess? Maybe a less invasive fix is possible 🤷