Re: [Caml-list] Library installation procedure (for use with OPAM)?

["Daniel Bünzli" <daniel.buenzli@erratique.ch>]

Le dimanche, 8 décembre 2013 à 21:55, Anthony Tavener a écrit :
> Is there a simple example of an appropriate install process suitable for use with OPAM? I've tried looking at a few existing packages and the build+install process, as usual, is convoluted... not as obscure as autotools, but different for each project. Is findlib still applicable? Or some other means to query the system install directory?


For my packages I now generate an opam .install file at the root of the distribution. This .install file indicates the type of build artefacts you generated and where they are located. This lets opam figure out where it should put that. The advantage over using `findlib install` is that it also support installing binaries, man pages, documentation, configuration files, etc. Note that you still want your users to be able to use findlib for using your package so be sure to also install a META file (no need to use `findlib install` for that).  
  
At the moment for achieving this I use a very simple build script [2] that allows you to describe what you want (see [3]), builds what you describe with ocamlbuild and generates a corresponding .install file. The resulting opam file for this example is here [4] (the pkg-git invocation is for massaging the checkout when you pin the package).

Best,

Daniel

[1] See section 2.2.3 in https://github.com/OCamlPro/opam/raw/master/doc/dev-manual/dev-manual.pdf
[2] https://github.com/dbuenzli/xmlm/blob/master/pkg/pkg-builder
[3] https://github.com/dbuenzli/xmlm/blob/master/pkg/build
[4] https://github.com/dbuenzli/xmlm/blob/master/opam