On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 10:59:49PM +0000, Sylvain Le Gall wrote:
> Please consider adding more comments to the following bug, which seems
> close to what you are discussing:
>
> https://forge.ocamlcore.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1473&group_id=54&atid=291
> 
> I must admit that I totally miss the whole point of the discussion,
> probably if you can make a summary of what you precisely need in the
> BTS, I will be able to understand the problem better.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about `oasis` to understand that bug
report :(

I'll try to explain how I'd like to use oasis/buildtool by looking how
Haskell's Cabal lets me do it:

- Configure without generating anything in the current dir:

    % runhaskell Setup.hs --builddir /tmp/my_build_dir

- Build using the just generated configuration, again without putting
  anything in the current dir:

    % runhaskell Setup.hs --builddir /tmp/my_build_dir

Comparing this to oasis/buildtool (assuming I've a pre-existing
`setup.ml` generated with `oasis setup -setup-update dynamic` to
minimize the amount of build-related stuff in the project):

- Configure

    % ocaml setup.ml -configure

  This generates a file, `setup.data` in the current dir.  I've found no
  way to have it generated in a dedicated build dir.

- Build

    % ocaml setup.ml -build -build-dir /tmp/my_build_dir -no-links

  This builds in the mentioned dir, but it also generates a `setup.log`
  in the current dir!

I thought that `-C` could offer a way to achieve this, but it doesn't:

    % mkdir /tmp/my_build_dir; cd /tmp/my_build_dir
    % ocaml /path/to/setup.ml -h
    Exception: Sys_error "_oasis: No such file or directory".
    File "/path/to/setup.ml", line 1:
    Error: Reference to undefined global `OASISDynRun'

I'm not convinced `-C` *should* be the way to achieve what I want.

Hopefully this makes it clearer what I mean.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                      OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 
email: magnus@therning.org   jabber: magnus@therning.org
twitter: magthe               http://therning.org/magnus

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
demo.
     -- Andy Finkel