Re: [Caml-list] Static linking via Ctypes?

["Daniel Bünzli" <daniel.buenzli@erratique.ch>]

Le mardi, 25 mars 2014 à 15:54, dbenjamin@janestreet.com a écrit :
> I'm using Ctypes to interface with a dynamic library, but in addition to the
> interface provided the library I have some helper functions (written in C,
> against the same library) that I'd also like to call via Ctypes. Is there any
> way to achieve this via static linking or am I required to build another
> shared object?

If you are using ctype's libffi backend you don't need in theory to build a shared dllmylib.so shared object to put in ocaml's lib/stublib. However in practice this is still useful to do even if that shared object is empty as it allows you to record the correct link flags for the dlled C library you bind to.  Doing so allows your users to simply use the ocamlfind package or #require it in the toplevel and everything works correctly, no C link flags to mess with when the binding is used.

This empty dll could be the place to put your helper functions. See this comment on how to proceed:

https://github.com/ocamllabs/ocaml-ctypes/issues/51#issuecomment-30729675

e.g. in that case you would put your helper functions in that empty tsdl_stub.c file.  

Best,

Daniel