Can we know whether a program is being bootstrapped?

[daniel klein]

Is there a documented way of knowing whether a program is being bootstrapped? I am thinking in the direction of byable programs, where all these useful _by() functions and macros are defined within the program.

Best
Daniel

[Sergio Correia]

This is a hack, but you can take advantage of what bootstrap leaves in sreturn. EG:

Run:
bootstrap r(whatever), noi: sreturn list

Results:

macros:
             s(k_eexp) : "0"
            s(explist) : "(r(whatever))"
             s(idlist) : "_bs_1"
              s(k_exp) : "1"

I checked return/ereturn/macros and didn't find anything useful, so that might be it.

[daniel klein]

Thanks for the answer. The problem with these things is that they are not necessarily specific to bootstrap and might change in future releases. Once things are documented they usually continue to work properly at least under version control.

Best
Daniel