Re: [Caml-list] managing ocaml dependencies

[skaller <skaller@users.sourceforge.net>]

On Thu, 2006-11-16 at 15:20 +0100, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> I'm trying to use autoconf for ocaml project, and I have troubles with

> They are two different strategies here, either generate them on
> maintainer host and ship them in the distribution, either generate them
> on user's host.

There is no choice: it has to be done by the developer
because sometimes the dependency is semantic, in particular
when order of initialisation matters.

For example:

(* file 1 *)
let a : int opt = ref None 
;;

(* file 2 *)
let _ = a := Some 99
;;

(* file 3 *)
let _ = 
  match !a with
  | None -> failwith "WRONG INIT ORDER"
  | Some x -> print_endline (string_of_int x)
;;

You must link in the given order. Ocamldep can tell
2 and 3 depend on 1, but not that 3 depends on 2.

> The second strategy, however, heavily relies on make implementation.
> Whereas GNU make happily generate .depend file on the fly with previous
> snippet, some other implementations don't, such as Digital Unix's one
> (and potentially others).
> Make: Cannot open ../.depend.  Stop.

This is easy to fix: generate a new_makefile and then use
a rule something like:

	cat new_makefile_prefix .depend > new_makefile
	make -f new_makefile

Since this is a rule, the order of evaluation is strict.


-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net