boot-pkgs content

[qrilka]

In default.nix I see boot-pkgs:

  # pkg-def's may reference boot packages, but those
  # are not guaranteed to be available on hackage, as
  # it is a manual process.  They might eventually show
  # up much later on hackage; but are not installable
  # anyway. Therefore we just strip them out of the
  # pkg-def's packages.
  boot-pkgs = [ "rts" "ghc" "ghci" "ghc-boot" "ghc-boot-th"
                "ghc-heap" # since ghc 8.6.
              ];

what is supposed to go into this list? The description sounds like it's about wired-in GHC boot packages but in https://github.com/ghc/ghc/blob/master/compiler/basicTypes/Module.hs#L1091-L1098 I see a different module list.

[angerman]

@qrilka sorry for the late rely. This is a list of packages that may show up in the install plan, which we however can not get from hackage. As such we null them out (and fall back to the ones shipped with ghc). If we did not do this here, we'd try to find them in the hackage expressions; and nix would fail.

See also #88, where we try to drop ghc from the list above.

It is really just a list of packages that may show up as dependencies, but are not available on hackage and thus have to be assumed to be shipped with ghc. Hope that answers the question.

[qrilka]

oh, it's mainly about boot packages missing from Hackage, now it makes sense, thanks