From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id VAA04808; Wed, 29 Jan 2003 21:22:57 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA05402 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 2003 21:22:57 +0100 (MET) Received: from cilantro.cs.wisc.edu (cilantro.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.166.48]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h0TKMur20786 for ; Wed, 29 Jan 2003 21:22:56 +0100 (MET) Received: (from willb@localhost) by cilantro.cs.wisc.edu (8.9.2/8.9.2) id OAA01783; Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:22:54 -0600 (CST) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 14:22:54 -0600 From: Will Benton To: Basile STARYNKEVITCH Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] question: "autoconfiguration" of Ocaml code (checking for libraries) Message-ID: <20030129142253.D1219@cilantro.cs.wisc.edu> References: <15928.12917.484208.539720@hector.lesours> <20030129140434.A1219@cilantro.cs.wisc.edu> <15928.13894.193615.945673@hector.lesours> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <15928.13894.193615.945673@hector.lesours>; from basile@starynkevitch.net on Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 09:15:02PM +0100 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 09:15:02PM +0100, Basile STARYNKEVITCH wrote: > Thanks. I know about autoconf, but would like to avoid it. Apparently, > the Ocaml team don't like it neither, since they don't use it in > Ocaml. > > I was seeking for something simpler. I'm not very fond of m4 macros > (even if I did hack several years ago such stuff). That's certainly fair. There is a steep learning curve, but the advantage is portability and not having to write all of the corner cases yourself. > In my opinion, autoconf was suited for the problem of configuring C > code for lots of Unix variants. This is not what I need (in particular > Ocaml has a unique implementation). Autoconf has a lot of built-in macros for C/UNIX code, for sure, but to say that you can't use it for Ocaml code is like saying that you can't use GNU make for Ocaml projects (or csound code, or LaTeX documents). It is a particularly general-purpose tool, although it will want to be able to preprocess the configurable files somehow. In C, this is trivial -- m4 macros for the Makefile which define preprocessor constants. In other language contexts, you will have to use m4 macros. > Maybe my perception of autoconf is wrong, but the mere fact that my > Debian distribution (ok it is sid, a.k.a unstable) requires several > versions of it makes me really feel uneasy. I don't understand your concern. The autoconf package generates a configure script, which is portable to any system, even one without any autoconf installed. The reason to have multiple versions of autoconf installed is that different development versions of packages are relying on different versions of autoconf's macros/behaviors *to generate* the configure script. best, wb -- Will Benton willb@acm.org ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners