[Caml-list] a question on packaging

[Caml-list] a question on packaging

[Doug Bagley]

I would like to offer a small module I've written for benchmarking.
But I also have some questions, since I've never done this before.
A compressed tarball is here:

 http://www.bagley.org/~doug/ocaml/benchmark/

This module is a fairly straight-forward port of the Perl Benchmark
module, which allows you to measure and compare the run-time of
functions.  There is some ocamldoc style documentation included.

I have seen some other packages use autoconf, or custom makefiles,
sometimes with findlib (which I haven't really explored yet). Some
modules seem to install in /usr/local/lib/ocaml and some in +contrib.

I took the route of using Markus' fine OcamlMakefile, extending it with
some extra stuff for what I need. So, for example, it will install in
/usr/local/lib/ocaml/contrib by default, but you can override that by
defining an environment variable, as I briefly explain in the INSTALL
file. I honestly have no idea if what I've done will work on Windows, I
don't have an easy way of finding out right now.

Do people think that strategy is sufficient? Is there a best way to
package up a module for distribution? Would others like to see OCaml
offer a standard method of packaging, distributing, and building
modules? (It's becoming quite popular to offer this, for example,
Perl and Xemacs offer standard packaging systems). I believe I saw
one or more messages in the archives on this subject, so maybe it's
not just me.

Anyway, I would appreciate any feedback, whether it's about the
benchmark module, or issues of packaging a module. Thanks.

cheers,
doug
-- 
http://www.bagley.org/~doug/contact.shtml
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