Re: [Caml-list] A question about custom toplevels

[Oleg <oleg@okmij.org>]

Alain Frisch mentioned:

> The Env module has the following:

> =======================================================
> module Persistent_signature : sig
>    type t =
>      { filename : string; (** Name of the file containing the signature. *)
>        cmi : Cmi_format.cmi_infos }

>    (** Function used to load a persistent signature. The default is to 
> look for
>        the .cmi file in the load path. This function can be overridden 
> to load
>        it from memory, for instance to build a self-contained toplevel. *)
>    val load : (unit_name:string -> t option) ref
> end
> =======================================================

This facility has made me think (some four years ago, in fact) that
OCaml may very well support type providers like those in F# (which
seem to be very popular, in this age of Big Data). This load function
can as well go on the web and load .cmi from there (or synthesize one
from the information found in the online schema). It might be a fun
project.