Ocamlbuild knows of two ways to build .cmxs files:
- from a .cmxa file, repackaged for dynamic loading
- from a .mldylib, listing the modules to be included (like .mllib for .cm{x,}a)

(See "ocamlbuild -documentation | grep cmxs" to check this)

Your build uses the first approach, and this results in d *and its dependencies* being packaged in d.cmxa and then d.cmxs. (See the log, or use -classic-display to see the commands). The behavior you expect requires the second approach. You can obtain it by adding

d.mldylib:
  D

On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 11:06 AM Frédéric Fort <frederic.fort@univ-lille.fr> wrote:
Hello,

I have an existing program and would like to allow to extend it's functionalities with plugins.
If I simplify my code structure it looks as follows:
 - a.ml : "main module" of the program
 - b.ml : additional definitions used in a.ml
 - c.ml : interface for plugins (a collection of function refs)
 - d.ml : plugin I would like to load

Now, d.ml uses values defined in b.ml. Some of them are of type string ref
and it seems that the code of b.ml is reevaluated when I call
Dynlink.loadfile "/path/to/d.cmxs" which resets them to the empty string.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?
Using allow_only and prohibit is not an option, since multiple plugins would each reevaluate C
and undo each others modifications.

Yours sincerely,
Frédéric Fort

P.S.: Here follows a minimal working example.
I compiled it with
ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind -lib dynlink a.native
ocamlbuild -use-ocamlfind d.cmxs

a.ml:
open Format

let _ =
  B.str := "abc";
  printf "%s\n" !B.str;
  begin
    try
      Dynlink.loadfile "./_build/d.cmxs"
    with Dynlink.Error err ->
      failwith (Dynlink.error_message err) end;
  printf "%s\n" !B.str;
  match !C.f with
  | Some(f) -> printf "%s\n" (f 0)
  | None -> ()

b.ml:
let str = ref ""

c.ml:
let f : (int -> string) option ref = ref None

d.ml:
let _ =
  C.f := Some((fun x -> !B.str^(string_of_int x)))

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