From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mail4-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail4-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.105]) by walapai.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id pBELa2Zl015409 for ; Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:36:02 +0100 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Ak8BAG4W6U7RVde2kGdsb2JhbABEqxYIIgEBAQEJCQ0HFAQhgXIBAQEDARICLAEBNwEECws0EjQBBQEOAQ0GLAmHWAKaNQqKM4QcAY4hB4skY6JtPYN5 X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.71,355,1320620400"; d="scan'208";a="123395086" Received: from mail-ey0-f182.google.com ([209.85.215.182]) by mail4-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/RC4-SHA; 14 Dec 2011 22:35:56 +0100 Received: by eaaf13 with SMTP id f13so2224773eaa.27 for ; Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:35:56 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=subject:mime-version:content-type:from:in-reply-to:date:cc :content-transfer-encoding:message-id:references:to:x-mailer; bh=HSRip6sRcILH1G1Wp0r/8/Wgxqb2ULpWyag7hGkgiJs=; b=f5bItvX5XNga1nrMB11NwwqvJt8+Y/l7jGzeI4EmkW1uUUENoSp3hT292oA2okKa16 w60ymGep75UrdkaaMKYqCoZYC5Q/5izbud7bN/dqCNSwM+RDbm5CqEcjuM8vpfS++zVf ytTPf97XvW/Oq2ezjkcvBVuRFC2BRFPB7wd/M= Received: by 10.205.81.141 with SMTP id zy13mr104300bkb.50.1323898556236; Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:35:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from coruscant.kosmos.all (ip-95-223-170-32.unitymediagroup.de. [95.223.170.32]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p13sm9286961bkd.4.2011.12.14.13.35.51 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:35:53 -0800 (PST) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1251.1) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 From: Benedikt Meurer In-Reply-To: <4EE8D506.1040800@frisch.fr> Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:35:51 +0100 Cc: Adrien , Jonathan Protzenko , Martin DeMello , Gerd Stolpmann , caml-list@inria.fr Message-Id: <18348AB4-5626-427D-A5FD-039FCB1D1CB3@googlemail.com> References: <4EDE33A0.6070004@gmail.com> <1323760512.9833.9.camel@samsung> <4EE711FB.5020602@frisch.fr> <4EE83C26.7090108@frisch.fr> <4EE86D90.6080409@gmail.com> <4EE87976.4030604@frisch.fr> <4EE8D506.1040800@frisch.fr> To: Alain Frisch X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1251.1) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by walapai.inria.fr id pBELa2Zl015409 Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Some comments on recent discussions On Dec 14, 2011, at 17:55 , Alain Frisch wrote: >> I'm quite interested in the ability to create .cmxs files without a C >> compiler and can already picture me using it. I've also noticed Benedikt's >> ocamlnat work. Would it be usable to script native-code applications? >> Maybe with less requirements? > > Benedikt's work on ocamlnat also includes a similar direct code generator as ours(to avoid the external assembler); I don't think it comes with a COFF file emitter, though. But yes, ocamlnat can be used to script native-code applications. ocamlnat does that already yes, although I doubt that it works on Windows out of the box (it did initially but I haven't tested for quite a while). We also did some prototype work on ELF and Mach-O emitters for ocamlopt earlier this year, which would remove the dependency on the toolchain assembler, but we found it easier to avoid the external stuff altogether and do everything in process (as implemented by ocamlnat now). Object Code emitters (ELF, Mach-O, PECOFF, etc.) would certainly be possible and with some restructuring in the compiler backend, they would even fit into the whole picture, and it would make life easier for OCaml cross-compilers and OCaml on Windows. But with the recent statements regarding the maintenance of the OCaml compiler toolchain and the fruitless discussion wrt. my initial proposal, I'm currently not willing to waste my time on this. > Alain Benedikt