Re: [Caml-list] ocaml support in autotools

[Guillaume Rousse <Guillaume.Rousse@inria.fr>]

Hendrik Tews wrote:
> Guillaume Rousse <Guillaume.Rousse@inria.fr> writes:
> 
>    I'd like to have ocaml support in autotools (autoconf + automake), to
>    avoid heavy code duplication between several projects (at least
>    ocmalimages and activedvi).
>    
> I would very much like to see this. Please go ahead. I did some
> autoconf hacking for the CCSL compiler, see the files aclocal.ml
> and configure.ac in
> http://wwwtcs.inf.tu-dresden.de/~tews/ccsl/viewcvs.cgi/Ccslc/
> Feel free to reuse that code.
I had a quick look, but I'm not sure of the interest of a specific
ocamlbin parameter, whereas you may as well just use PATH:

AC_PATH_PROG(CAMLC, ocamlc)
if test -z "$CAMLC"; then
    AC_MSG_ERROR([objective-caml compiler not found, check your PATH])
fi

Standard macros, such as AC_PROG_CC, also relies on default PATH, and
don't provide additional options for supplying program specific one.

> The main problem with autoconf from my point of view (at least in
> 2.57, the latest version I looked at) is that it provides a lot
> of stuff, which is only relevant for C/C++ projects and which you
> cannot easily disable. For instance the configure options
> --includedir. Further, there is no way to add an additional
> configure option. I have therefore overridden the internal macros
> _AC_INIT_PARSE_ARGS and _AC_INIT_HELP in a private aclocal.m4.
> However, now I have to adopt my changes to every new autoconf
> version. Idially, there should be a simple way to disable each of
> the standard configure options and to add new ones.
You can't disable existing ones. However, it don't see anything C/C++
specific apart environment variable among them, and they don't really
hurt anyway.

For new ones, you have AC_ARG_WITH and AC_ARG_ENABLE, fur subtle
semantic differences.
-- 
Guillaume Rousse
Projet Estime, INRIA
Domaine de Voluceau
Rocquencourt - B.P. 105
78153 Le Chesnay Cedex - France