Re: [Caml-list] Dynamic loading of native code : what about librairies and packs ?

[Alain Frisch <alain@frisch.fr>]

Pierre-Loïc Garoche wrote:
> ** First: what about external libraries ?
> Could you detail the behavior of the linking process of cmxs file with
> respect to dependancies.
> 
> If I understand well any library used to compile cmx files should be
> - either know by the software dynamically loading the plugin,
> - or its cmxa should be passed as argument of ocamlopt -shared command.
> 
> But what is the difference between:
>    ocamlopt.opt -shared  mylib.cmxa xxx.cmx yyy.cmx -o target.cmxs
> and
>    ocamlopt.opt -shared -linkall mylib.cmxa xxx.cmx yyy.cmx -o target.cmxs
> 
> Both seems to work similarly on my example (no differences between
> resulting files).

The -linkall forces all the modules in the included libraries (here, 
mylib.cmxa) to be included in the .cmxs file, even if they are not 
explicitly used by other linked modules. This option is generally 
useless when linking cmxs files, unless the .cmxs file is loaded in 
non-private mode, and you want subsequently loaded .cmxs files to be 
able to access any module in the libraries. (Typically, if you turn 
mylib.cmxa into a mylib.cmxs, without any other module, you want -linkall.)


> ** Second: how about packs ?

As far as I can tell, packing and creating cmxs files are orthogonal 
features: they don't overlap and they don't have bad interactions. It is 
ok to put in cmxs files a module produced by -pack. I think it is also 
ok to put modules compiled with -for-pack, but I don't see why you would 
do that.



Regards,


Alain