[Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Alessandro Baretta]

Hello Caml riders!

I'm glad to announce the first public alpha release of the 
Xcaml application server for Apache (and other CGI enable 
web servers). You can find it at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcaml/


Xcaml is a number of things:

1) An XML flavored programming language.

Xcaml scripts compute a text file, generally an XML or HTML 
file. The full power of Ocaml can be unleashed by embedding 
ocaml code within <?xcaml ... ?> processing instructions. 
Other features include $-variables, whereby "$varname" gets 
substituted with the contents of the "varname" CGI 
environment variable); $-expressions, whereby "$( ocaml-expr 
)$" is substituted with the string computed by the 
ocaml-expr; $#-variables, whereby "$#varname" is substituted 
with the contents of the varname session-environment 
variable saved within the xcaml application server.

2) An Xcaml -> Ocaml -> Bytecode compiler

Xcaml scripts get translated to Ocaml and subsequently 
compiled to bytecode object files.

3) A dynamic application server

Xcaml-derived bytecode object files are dynamically linked 
with the xcaml executable to produce the output of the 
associated xcaml-script.

Xcaml is currently being used to develop web frontends to 
mission critical database applications.

Currently, the main limitation of the Xcaml system is the 
total absence of documentation, as the the implementors of 
the Xcaml system are also the only users (up to now).

I plan on working on the documentation, but I would first 
like to estimate how much interest there is in the ocaml 
community for this project.

Of course, contributions and cooperation are more than welcome.

Alex

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Karl Zilles]

Alessandro Baretta wrote:
 > Hello Caml riders!
 >
 > I'm glad to announce the first public alpha release of the Xcaml
 > application server for Apache (and other CGI enable web servers). You
 > can find it at:
 > http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcaml/

Looks interesting to me!

Is there any way under this implementation to pool database connections? 
  NetCGI works with standard CGI (no caching), or with the Ajp protocol: 
sequential processing (not ideal) or with forked subprocesses (can we 
pool db connections with forked processes?  Sounds tricky).

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Alessandro Baretta]

Karl Zilles wrote:
> Alessandro Baretta wrote:
>  > Hello Caml riders!
>  >
>  > I'm glad to announce the first public alpha release of the Xcaml
>  > application server for Apache (and other CGI enable web servers). You
>  > can find it at:
>  > http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcaml/
> 
> Looks interesting to me!
> 
> Is there any way under this implementation to pool database connections? 

What do you mean exactly?

>  NetCGI works with standard CGI (no caching), or with the Ajp protocol: 

In due time Xcaml will support the Jserv protocol, but at 
present it only runs as a (stateful) CGI.

> sequential processing (not ideal) or with forked subprocesses (can we 
> pool db connections with forked processes?  Sounds tricky).

Could you better explain what you need?

Alex

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Karl Zilles]

Alessandro Baretta wrote:
> Karl Zilles wrote:
>> Alessandro Baretta wrote:
>>  > http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcaml/
>>
>> Looks interesting to me!
>>
>> Is there any way under this implementation to pool database connections? 
> 
> What do you mean exactly?
> 

Typically in web applications, connections to the database are cached 
because there is a large overhead in making the connection.  They are 
stored in a pool which is shared among the requests coming in.

> In due time Xcaml will support the Jserv protocol, but at present it 
> only runs as a (stateful) CGI.

More generally, I would like be able to cache data in memory.  When you 
say stateful CGI, does that mean that it reloads its state from disk on 
every request?

Karl

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Michal Moskal]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 10:31:22PM +0100, Alessandro Baretta wrote:
> Hello Caml riders!
> 
> I'm glad to announce the first public alpha release of the 
> Xcaml application server for Apache (and other CGI enable 
> web servers). You can find it at:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcaml/

Nice, but why it runs 'su -c make install' after during regular
make?

-- 
: Michal Moskal ::::: malekith/at/pld-linux.org :  GCS {C,UL}++++$ a? !tv
: PLD Linux ::::::: Wroclaw University, CS Dept :  {E-,w}-- {b++,e}>+++ h

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Alessandro Baretta]

Michal Moskal wrote:
> 
> Nice, but why it runs 'su -c make install' after during regular
> make?

You are right in pointing out that this feature should not 
be in the source distribution I published. I use this 
feature to simplify installation of the entire software 
distribution at my customers' sites (Libraries + Xcaml + 
Xcaml pages).

I will remove this from the makefile in the Sourceforge distro.

Alex

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 10:31:22PM +0100, Alessandro Baretta wrote:
> ocaml-expr; $#-variables, whereby "$#varname" is substituted 
> with the contents of the varname session-environment 
> variable saved within the xcaml application server.

Could you briefly explain how sessione variables are handled in Xcaml?

> 2) An Xcaml -> Ocaml -> Bytecode compiler

Is the compilation a required step or it's an optional one?

> I plan on working on the documentation, but I would first 
> like to estimate how much interest there is in the ocaml 
> community for this project.

Sounds interesting to me ... let's chat a bit about it! :)

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli  -  Undergraduate Student of CS @ Uni. Bologna, Italy
zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it}  -  http://www.bononia.it/zack/
"  I know you believe you understood what you think I said, but I am not
sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!  " -- G.Romney

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[Alessandro Baretta]

Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 10:31:22PM +0100, Alessandro Baretta wrote:
> 
>>ocaml-expr; $#-variables, whereby "$#varname" is substituted 
>>with the contents of the varname session-environment 
>>variable saved within the xcaml application server.
> 
> 
> Could you briefly explain how sessione variables are handled in Xcaml?

Very briefly, we have a "big" hashtable, where the keys are 
the session handles and the values are the session 
environments. Session environments are hashtables from 
strings to strings. Environment variables must be stored by 
a function call within and <?xcaml ... ?> block but can be 
accessed directly from HTML/XML/whatever with a $#varname 
directive.

>>2) An Xcaml -> Ocaml -> Bytecode compiler
> 
> 
> Is the compilation a required step or it's an optional one?

It's done automatically for you when you load the page. A 
cache file keeps track of what xcaml pages have already been 
compiled, so that files are not needlessly recompiled on and 
on again. Of course, if you make a change to a page 
on-the-fly, Xcaml notices and flushes it from the cache, 
forcing a recompilation.

>>I plan on working on the documentation, but I would first 
>>like to estimate how much interest there is in the ocaml 
>>community for this project.
> 
> 
> Sounds interesting to me ... let's chat a bit about it! :)
> 
> Cheers.
> 

Sono qui, Zack! Fammi sapere.

A new release is coming up this week.

Alex

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Re: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released

[SooHyoung Oh]

What shoud I do for installation?
What is "freerp-dblib-dmd" in xcaml-lib's Makefile?

---
SooHyoung Oh
email: shoh@duonix.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alessandro Baretta" <alex@baretta.com>
To: "Ocaml" <caml-list@inria.fr>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 6:31 AM
Subject: [Caml-list] Announce: Xcaml 0.0.1 released


> Hello Caml riders!
>
> I'm glad to announce the first public alpha release of the
> Xcaml application server for Apache (and other CGI enable
> web servers). You can find it at:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcaml/
>
>
> Xcaml is a number of things:
>
> 1) An XML flavored programming language.
>
> Xcaml scripts compute a text file, generally an XML or HTML
> file. The full power of Ocaml can be unleashed by embedding
> ocaml code within <?xcaml ... ?> processing instructions.
> Other features include $-variables, whereby "$varname" gets
> substituted with the contents of the "varname" CGI
> environment variable); $-expressions, whereby "$( ocaml-expr
> )$" is substituted with the string computed by the
> ocaml-expr; $#-variables, whereby "$#varname" is substituted
> with the contents of the varname session-environment
> variable saved within the xcaml application server.
>
> 2) An Xcaml -> Ocaml -> Bytecode compiler
>
> Xcaml scripts get translated to Ocaml and subsequently
> compiled to bytecode object files.
>
> 3) A dynamic application server
>
> Xcaml-derived bytecode object files are dynamically linked
> with the xcaml executable to produce the output of the
> associated xcaml-script.
>
> Xcaml is currently being used to develop web frontends to
> mission critical database applications.
>
> Currently, the main limitation of the Xcaml system is the
> total absence of documentation, as the the implementors of
> the Xcaml system are also the only users (up to now).
>
> I plan on working on the documentation, but I would first
> like to estimate how much interest there is in the ocaml
> community for this project.
>
> Of course, contributions and cooperation are more than welcome.
>
> Alex
>
> -------------------
> 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
>

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