Re: [Caml-list] managing ocaml dependencies

[Nicolas Pouillard]

On 11/16/06, skaller <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-11-16 at 15:20 +0100, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> > I'm trying to use autoconf for ocaml project, and I have troubles with
>
> > They are two different strategies here, either generate them on
> > maintainer host and ship them in the distribution, either generate them
> > on user's host.
>
> There is no choice: it has to be done by the developer
> because sometimes the dependency is semantic, in particular
> when order of initialisation matters.

When order of initialization matters, just enforce it.

> For example:
>
> (* file 1 *)
> let a : int opt = ref None
> ;;
>
> (* file 2 *)
> let _ = a := Some 99
> ;;
>
> (* file 3 *)

Just add something like:

open File2;; (* because initialization order matters *)

Or if really don't want use open:

module File2 = File2;; (* because initialization order matters *)

Or if really don't want re-export that module (if you don't have a .mli):

let module File2 = File2 in ();; (* because initialization order matters *)

> let _ =
>   match !a with
>   | None -> failwith "WRONG INIT ORDER"
>   | Some x -> print_endline (string_of_int x)
> ;;
>
> You must link in the given order. Ocamldep can tell
> 2 and 3 depend on 1, but not that 3 depends on 2.
>
> > The second strategy, however, heavily relies on make implementation.
> > Whereas GNU make happily generate .depend file on the fly with previous
> > snippet, some other implementations don't, such as Digital Unix's one
> > (and potentially others).
> > Make: Cannot open ../.depend.  Stop.
>
> This is easy to fix: generate a new_makefile and then use
> a rule something like:
>
>         cat new_makefile_prefix .depend > new_makefile
>         make -f new_makefile
>
> Since this is a rule, the order of evaluation is strict.

--
Nicolas Pouillard