Re: ocaml not native.

[Fabrice Le Fessant <lefessan@talbot.inria.fr>]

> ocamlopt builds successfully on my systems.  Is there a reason why
> the installation doesn't rebuild ocaml to be native code, when it can?
> Is there a good reason not to attempt this myself?

  This is a really interesting question. In fact, ocaml can't be
compiled in native code since it needs an interpreter to run the bytecode
it generates. However, the bytecode interpreter can't be integrated in
the native code system (for now ...).

  A few months ago, I wrote a Dynlink library which can be integrated
in native programs (now part of the Efuns package (see homepage)).
I think it would be very interesting if, instead of using its own
linker and interpreter, the toplevel could use the general Dynlink
system. Then, any program (bytecode or native) would be able to
integrate a toplevel evaluation loop for deeper interaction with the user.



- Fabrice

Homepage: http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lefessan