[BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[Sébastien Miquel]

Hi,

The async pdf export functionality appears to be broken with latest org 
and a
recent emacs version compiled with native-comp enabled (I have not tested
without native-comp).

To reproduce:

  - use `emacs -q` and an empty init.el file (your init file gets picked 
up by
    the async emacs instance)
  - (setq org-export-async-debug t)
  - find any org file and hit =C-c C-e C-a C-l C-p= to export as pdf file.

The async process will exit abnormaly.

The issue stems from this line in `org-export-to-file`
  :       (ignore-errors (funcall ',post-process ,file))

In `org-latex-export-to-pdf`, this `post-process` is set to
  :       (lambda (file) (org-latex-compile file))

I think native-comp compiles this lambda, which messes things up.

As a fix, you can quote the lambda in `org-latex-export-to-pdf`
  :       '(lambda (file) (org-latex-compile file))

The same applies to other backends but I don't know if it's the right 
thing to do.

Regards,

-- 
Sébastien Miquel

Re: [BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[Tim Cross]

Sébastien Miquel <sebastien.miquel@posteo.eu> writes:

> Hi,
>
> The async pdf export functionality appears to be broken with latest org and a
> recent emacs version compiled with native-comp enabled (I have not tested
> without native-comp).
>
> To reproduce:
>
>  - use `emacs -q` and an empty init.el file (your init file gets picked up by
>    the async emacs instance)
>  - (setq org-export-async-debug t)
>  - find any org file and hit =C-c C-e C-a C-l C-p= to export as pdf file.
>
> The async process will exit abnormaly.
>
> The issue stems from this line in `org-export-to-file`
>  :       (ignore-errors (funcall ',post-process ,file))
>
> In `org-latex-export-to-pdf`, this `post-process` is set to
>  :       (lambda (file) (org-latex-compile file))
>
> I think native-comp compiles this lambda, which messes things up.
>
> As a fix, you can quote the lambda in `org-latex-export-to-pdf`
>  :       '(lambda (file) (org-latex-compile file))
>
> The same applies to other backends but I don't know if it's the right thing to
> do.
>

I think native comp has a way to go before we begin to worry about how
to address any bugs which it may introduce/discover. While it is good to
have information like this posted to the list for anyone who wants to
experiment with native comp, it would be premature to apply any fixes to
the org code base. 

-- 
Tim Cross

Re: [BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[Mark Barton]

> On Jul 15, 2021, at 10:45 AM, Sébastien Miquel <sebastien.miquel@posteo.eu> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The async pdf export functionality appears to be broken with latest org and a
> recent emacs version compiled with native-comp enabled (I have not tested
> without native-comp).
> 
> To reproduce:
> 
>  - use `emacs -q` and an empty init.el file (your init file gets picked up by
>    the async emacs instance)
>  - (setq org-export-async-debug t)
>  - find any org file and hit =C-c C-e C-a C-l C-p= to export as pdf file.
> 
> The async process will exit abnormaly.
> 
> The issue stems from this line in `org-export-to-file`
>  :       (ignore-errors (funcall ',post-process ,file))
> 
> In `org-latex-export-to-pdf`, this `post-process` is set to
>  :       (lambda (file) (org-latex-compile file))
> 
> I think native-comp compiles this lambda, which messes things up.
> 
> As a fix, you can quote the lambda in `org-latex-export-to-pdf`
>  :       '(lambda (file) (org-latex-compile file))
> 
> The same applies to other backends but I don't know if it's the right thing to do.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> Sébastien Miquel
> 
> 

Did you post this to the Emacs list? Native-comp is in master, but not “released”. So I agree with what Tim said about it is too soon for Org to consider solutions if it happens to be an edge case that native-comp might be able to address. I use native-comp, but have not tried the async export yet.

Mark

Re: [BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[Timothy]

Mark Barton <mbarton98@gmail.com> writes:

> I use native-comp, but have not tried the async export yet.

FWIW I use native-comp (with Doom + my config) and async PDF export
works.

--
Timothy

Re: [BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[Tim Cross]

Timothy <tecosaur@gmail.com> writes:

> Mark Barton <mbarton98@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I use native-comp, but have not tried the async export yet.
>
> FWIW I use native-comp (with Doom + my config) and async PDF export
> works.

It might be useful for the OP if you could post what commit of Emacs 28
you are running. Native compilation is a moving feast and it could be
either the OP is running an older version (and issue has been fixed) or
a later version (and issue has been recently introduced). Knowing which
commit you are building from might help him identify whether an update
might fix the issue.

One thing I did notice when I was running native-comp was that the
caching strategy was a little hit and miss - it could also be that your
version is not running native compiled org.

When I was trying native compilation, I found that

- native compilation was a bit restrictive - it didn't compile things
  correctly in some situations because it didn't load some dependencies
  (i.e. you got errors and warning you don't see with normal *.elc
  compilation)

- The caching was a bit hit and miss

- There was no noticeable performance improvement.

I think all of these issues will eventually be addressed as things
mature. However, for now, I don't see any real benefit in enabling
native compilation other than on an academic level.

-- 
Tim Cross

Re: [BUG] Async pdf export broken with native-comp

[Sébastien Miquel]

Hi,

Timothy writes:
 > FWIW I use native-comp (with Doom + my config) and async PDF export
 > works.

Would you mind checking that ~org-latex-export-to-pdf~ is native 
compiled, using
=describe-function= ?

I've updated to latest emacs master and I'm still hitting this issue,
although the steps to reproduce in my original mail are wrong :

  + with =emacs -q= async export fails, but for a different reason : I get a
    =wrong argument stringp, nil= error because ~user-init-file~ is nil 
inside
    ~org-export-async-start~.
  + The issue I described occurs when you use an empty init.el file and 
start
    =emacs=. Perhaps you need to make sure that ~org-latex-export-to-pdf~ is
    native compiled.

Regards,

-- 
Sébastien Miquel