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Message-Id: <20070805.192830.98869896.garrigue@math.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
To: shawjef3@msu.edu
Cc: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] three different labltk behaviors
From: Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@math.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
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References: <46B5123A.9020702@msu.edu>
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From: Jeff Shaw <shawjef3@msu.edu>

> Ocaml community,
> For fun I wrote a version of Life for ocaml +labltk.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life
> 
> Here are the 3 ways I've tried to run it and the results:
> 
> 1. compile to bytecode or native:
> "Fatal error: exception Protocol.TkError("Tcl/Tk not initialised")"
> 
> 2. #load all the libraries into the toplevel (or give them as command 
> line arguments) then #use "lifemain.ml":
> works
> 
> 3. Run the toplevel with "lifemain.ml" as an argument:
> gives an empty Tk window
> 
> The results are the same on Mac OS X and Windows XP (mingw).

There are two problems:
1) There is a buglet in Tkthread, which was originally intended to be
   used only with the toplevel. Namely, the Tkthread.sync command executes
   immediately in the current thread if there is no tk thread
   running. This is to avoid deadlocks, but the new tk thread
   registers itself, so there is a race condition if sync is called
   immediately after Thread.start. For the time being, this can be
   fixed by inserting
       Thread.delay 0.001

2) You must "join" the tk thread before exiting, otherwise you will
   exit immediately.

So you should correct the beginning of lifemain.ml with

  open Tkthread

  let tkth = start ()
  let () = Thread.delay 0.001

and at the end of lifemain.ml

  let () = Thread.join tkth

With this it works at least under unix.
Hope it helps.

Jacques Garrigue