RE: [Caml-list] Interface(.mli) location

[David Allsopp <dra-news@metastack.com>]

SF Markus Elfring wrote:
> > a) Delete ./a.cmi as part of your build procedure.
> 
> Can this design option trigger difficulties in your file system
> configuration?

What sort of difficulties do you mean?

> >    This isn't ideal, though, because you lose the type-checking
> > against d/a.cmi
> 
> Would you like to explain this conclusion a bit more?
d/a.cmi may constrain values defined in ./a.ml and you won't get the type-checking this way. For example, you could have [val foo: int] in d/a.mli but [let foo = "bar"] in ./a.ml and compiling this way you'll only spot the error later on when trying to link.

> > c) Implement a new option in the compiler driver which suppresses
> >    the automatic generation of .cmi files (e.g. ocamlc -c -I d -no-cmi
> > a.ml)
> 
> I would find such a command parameter also useful.
> Will any more fine-tuning be considered for the safer handling of
> interface descriptions and corresponding implementations?

I was just floating ideas - if it's actually useful, raise a Mantis PR!


David