racket-static/README.md

# racket-static

a base set of scripts that let you build fully self-contained static binaries for racket
applications

depending on your needs, this can be preferred to the usual `raco exe`/`raco dist` because that
tooling can generate distribution folders that still depend on dynamic libraries the target system
might not have (actually, i was prompted to make this partially by someone running into this exact
problem on mastodon). additionally, one single binary can be more convenient to distribute than a
whole `dist` folder structure

## dependencies

 - systemd-nspawn (containers!)
 - sudo (for running the above)
 - rsync (copying files into container)
 - wget (downloading stuff)

## limitations

because the runtime is hosted in a static binary, dynamic ffi is unavailable (eg, `ffi-lib`) will
not work. the workaround for this currently provided is static ffi, where loading `table` from
`static-ffi` (a primitive module instatiated by the runtime wrapper) will produce a table of
available static ffi functions - the integer pointer will need to be `cast` to the correct function
type but after that it works as expected  
further work will automate the generation and loading of static ffi tables, ideally out of C headers
using `c-utils`

currently if the racket code runs into an error it segfaults. i think i have to register a handler
for this but idk how the internals work

runtime include paths probably don't work as expected. i have not tested but ideally don't use
those yet

## hello world demo

first time you run make it'll take a while. be patient. having more cores helps

```
make
./run
```

## references

<https://docs.racket-lang.org/inside/embedding.html>