[Caml-list] ocaml-variants via binary patch?

[Kenichi Asai <asai@is.ocha.ac.jp>]

I am trying to create an ocaml-variant (a type debugger) in which
parser.mly is modified.  Since OCaml uses menhir, I have to run "make
promote-menhir" to obtain "boot/menhir/parser.ml".  After that, I
created a patch against the original OCaml source.  This way, I wanted
to obtain the variant by specifying the patch in the opam file.

However, git diff somehow considers "boot/menhir/parser.ml" as a
binary file.  Now I got stuck.  If I create a patch via:

git diff --binary

the patch program (launched by "opam switch create") says git binary
diff is not supported.  Is there a way to pass "--binary" to patch
launched by opam?  Or, is there a way to obtain non-binary diff for
"boot/menhir/parser.ml"?  (The file appears to be an OCaml file, with
some very long lines.)

I then tried to include "make promote-menhir" into the build process
of opam, but opam says "menhir: command not found".  Sure, menhir will
be built after the switch which I am now trying to create, leading to
circular dependency.

What can I do?

-- 
Kenichi Asai