mostly static ocaml binaries

mostly static ocaml binaries

[Basile STARYNKEVITCH]

Dear All

I would like to know how to make ocaml with mostly static binaries.

My motivation is the following: I want to code some dynamic web site but 
my small hosting company provide only a very basic linux system. In 
particular even the /usr/lib/libpcre.so is not available.

So I would like to develop an application which only has as dynamic 
library the very common ones like libc.so libm.so libdl.so and no much more.

I know that the request is not very common, I am not familiar enough 
with Ocaml linking of C libraries ...

BTW, those developing tools in Ocaml for Web might also consider this 
small issue: some small web hosting companies (those costing a few euros 
or dollars each month) offer only very few shared libraries, and most of 
the libraries used by such Ocaml web applications should be statically 
linked. It may sound strange, but it is true.

Oh, did I forgot to tell that I hate PHP?

Regards.


-- 
Basile STARYNKEVITCH         http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/
email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359
8, rue de la Faïencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France
*** opinions {are only mines, sont seulement les miennes} ***

Re: [Caml-list] mostly static ocaml binaries

[Richard Jones]

On Fri, May 18, 2007 at 06:02:47PM +0200, Basile STARYNKEVITCH wrote:
> I would like to know how to make ocaml with mostly static binaries.
> 
> My motivation is the following: I want to code some dynamic web site but 
> my small hosting company provide only a very basic linux system. In 
> particular even the /usr/lib/libpcre.so is not available.

Just a thought, but how about keeping the shared libraries in (eg)
your home directory or another writable place, and using
$LD_LIBRARY_PATH to cause them to be loaded into the process.  If this
works then at least you won't need to change how OCaml binaries get
built.

  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/mylibs ./mywebapp

(or if using CGI, try a wrapper script or Apache SetEnv).

> Oh, did I forgot to tell that I hate PHP?

It's horrible.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat

Re: [Caml-list] mostly static ocaml binaries

[Olivier Andrieu]

Hi,

On 5/18/07, Basile STARYNKEVITCH <basile@starynkevitch.net> wrote:
> Dear All
>
> I would like to know how to make ocaml with mostly static binaries.
>
> My motivation is the following: I want to code some dynamic web site but
> my small hosting company provide only a very basic linux system. In
> particular even the /usr/lib/libpcre.so is not available.
>
> So I would like to develop an application which only has as dynamic
> library the very common ones like libc.so libm.so libdl.so and no much more.
>
> I know that the request is not very common, I am not familiar enough
> with Ocaml linking of C libraries ...

it's possible: when you're building the library, instead of specifying
the C library to link as -lpcre, specify the static lib directly, eg:
    ocamlopt -a -o pcre.cmxa ... -cclib /usr/lib/libpcre.a
and then link your application as usual (and add the -verbose flag to
ocamlopt to check what's going on exactly).

If you don't want to re-build the caml pcre library, you could also
use the -noautolink flag I think:
    ocamlopt -o my_app pcre.cmxa -noautolink -cclib /usr/lib/libpcre.a
my_app.cmx ...

HTH,
-- 
  Olivier