Re: [Caml-list] flexdll circular dependency on ocamlc: Impossible to built ocaml for mingw without using some prebuilt binaries?

[Alain Frisch <alain@frisch.fr>]

On 24/10/2015 11:50, Soegtrop, Michael wrote:
> Also I wonder why flexdll/flexlink is required. The documentation of
> flexdll states:
>
> Windows DLL cannot refer to symbols defined in the main application or
> in previously loaded DLLs.
>
> In my experience this is not true. At least when using MSVC one can
> declare functions in the main executable as DLL-export. Then when
> linking the main executable an import library is created in the same way
> as when building a DLL by the linker. The DLL can then link to this
> import library and can access the functions  in the main executable.

Dynlink follows a different model: dynlinked units are not tied to a 
specific main executable.  A myplugin.cmxs can be dynamically linked by 
any application that provides the required interfaces.

As for the dependency between OCaml and flexdll: the simplest approach 
is to consider flexdll as any other external tool required to build 
OCaml (do you recompile "gcc", "make", etc  from sources?). It just 
happens to be implemented in OCaml.  Alternatively, you could create a 
bytecode version of flexlink, which would only require ocamlrun.


Alain