Re: [Caml-list] Re: automatic extaction of the .mli (and a little more) from the .ml

[Jacques Le Normand <rathereasy@gmail.com>]

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned that it can speed up compilation by not
having to recompile cmx files unnecessarily.
On May 31, 2013 8:42 AM, "Yaron Minsky" <yminsky@janestreet.com> wrote:

> I concur.  I think this is largely the accepted wisdom among experienced
> OCaml developers.
>
> y
> On May 31, 2013 11:21 AM, "Hongbo Zhang" <bobzhang1988@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 5/31/13 1:31 AM, Malcolm Matalka wrote:
>>
>>> I know of no such tool, but in counter to your premise: I used to think
>>> maintaining a .ml and .mli was foolish, however I no longer do.  .mli is
>>> effectively documentation for me.  It contains a lot of comments and is
>>> generally written to reflect how the API should be used rather than the
>>> order in which I must express functions to get ta .ml to compile.  On
>>> top of that, ocamlc will fail to compile if your .ml and .mli don't
>>> match, so it's a valuable check that what I think my module does is also
>>> what the compiler does.  I also tend to write the .mli first, then write
>>> the .ml.  I find it to be a great way to develop.
>>>
>>> In short, I think it's a good thing to maintain these things by hand.
>>> But as for your original question I'm completely useless, sorry.
>>>
>>>  I had the same experience with you, after writing some large software
>> in ML, I found it better to maintain mli by hand.
>>
>>> /M
>>>
>>> Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp> writes:
>>>
>>>  Hello,
>>>>
>>>> Is there some recommended tool/script to generate a .mli
>>>> from the corresponding .ml?
>>>>
>>>> I want a little more than ocamlc -i:
>>>>
>>>> - I think there should be tags in the .ml file as comments
>>>>    that say "export this" to the .mli.
>>>>    By default, things are not exported.
>>>> - maybe it should have an option to say to replicate
>>>>    the ocamldoc comments in the .mli.
>>>> - it could be nice if the order in which things are exported
>>>>    to the .mli can be specified, maybe as an argument of the tag.
>>>>    So that the .mli can be more readable (only backward references
>>>>    to concepts, etc.)
>>>>
>>>> If there is a need to create a tool, let's call it "nomli". :)
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> F.
>>>>
>>>> PS: I'm not going to maintain both a .mli and a .ml.
>>>>      I feel it is a dumb and error-prone job and that
>>>>      itches me.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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>

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