Re: [Caml-list] Camlp5 release 5.03

[Richard Jones <rich@annexia.org>]

On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 12:33:12PM +0100, David Teller wrote:
> By quickly browsing the documentation, I haven't been able to understand
> the core of the difference between camlp4 and camlp5. I mean, there's a
> Pcaml module which seems to have disappared from camlp4 in 3.10, but I
> assume that's not where it ends. Could you tell us a bit more about it ?

Camlp4 was extensively changed for the 3.10 release, in many ways not
for the better (it's much bigger now for a start, and not backwards
compatible, and has almost no documentation, and I have problems with
it and findlib).

Camlp5 is the camlp4 from 3.09.3 (before the changes / fork), and with
some ongoing maintenance.

     3.09         3.10
-------+----/\/----+---------> "new" camlp4 (distributed with OCaml)
       |
        \
         --------------------> camlp5 (now distributed separately)

If you had a package which depends on camlp4 in 3.09.3, you need to
modify it so it compiles with OCaml 3.10.  An alternative which
doesn't involve modifying your package is to install camlp5.  You can
install both in parallel no problem.

Debian ships both.  Fedora will soon as well.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat