Re: [Caml-list] Disabling the OCaml garbage collector

[Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr>]

> Well, I decided to go ahead and hack some C code to build a custom OCaml
> compiler. These are the steps I followed: [...]
> However, when I compile this code with 'make world' I get the following
> error while linking:

That's a classic bootstrapping issue, and "make bootstrap; make all"
might solve it.  But you are on the wrong tracks anyway.

What your C code does is disable the compactor, which runs from time
to time to eliminate fragmentation in the major heap by moving objects
around.  You can disable it by using Gc.set with the "max_overhead"
field set to a suitably high value, as documented in the Gc module.
There is no need to hack the run-time system.

However, what you will never be able to disable is the minor
collector, which moves blocks from the minor heap to the major heap.
The reason it cannot be disabled is that the minor heap is of fixed
size, so if it gets full and the minor GC isn't executed to empty it,
your program cannot proceed.

You see, the Caml garbage collector is like a god from ancient
mythology: mighty, but very irritable.  If you mess with it, it'll
make you suffer in surprising ways.

The solution to your problem is to play nice with the Caml GC: on the
C/Python side, handle Caml "values" through an indirection via a
malloc-ed block, and register the Caml value contained within this
block with the Caml GC using register_global_roots(), as Thomas
Fischbacher outlined.  Members of this list can probably point you to
some existing C/Caml bindings that does just this and that you could
use as inspiration.

Hope this helps,

- Xavier Leroy