Re: [Caml-list] Scripting in ocaml

[Aleksey Nogin <nogin@metaprl.org>]

On 27.12.2006 10:39, Richard Jones wrote:

> This is the syntax, right?
> 
> http://omake.metaprl.org/omake-shell.html#chapter:shell
> 
> It looks remarkably shell-like.

The above link only covers the "proper shell" parts of the OMake/osh
language (i.e. parts related to calling external commands).

Some features of the general language are outlined in
http://omake.metaprl.org/omake-language.html#chapter:language

> For those (like me) too lazy to
> download the source, can you give us an idea of how this is
> implemented?  Is it an alternate syntax for OCaml or an interpreter
> written using ocamllex, etc.?
> 
The OMake/osh language is fairly different from OCaml. The language was
designed specifically to work nicely in build specifications and shell
scriplets,  which is a quite different set of constraints than the ones
OCaml is designed for. The result is a functional language with dynamic
typing and dynamic scoping.

OMake is implemented in OCaml (with a bit of C -
fam/gamin/kqueue/inotify bindings, Windows-specific code, etc). It can
be characterized as an interpreter (although before a file is executed,
there is a small compilation-like translation step) implemented using
ocamllex, ocamlyacc, etc. The parsed+translated version of each file is
cached to avoid the penalty of having to do it on every run.

Aleksey