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

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

moosotc@gmail.com wrote:
> moosotc@gmail.com writes:
> 
> > moosotc@gmail.com writes:
> >
> >> David Allsopp <dra-news@metastack.com> writes:
> >>
> > [..snip..]
> >
> >>>>
> >>>> d) Make the compiler skip generation of .cmi if it sees one in the -I
> >>>>    directories?
> >>>
> >>> No - I think the use-case is too niche to justify breaking backwards
> >>> compatibility. That's potentially a very subtle way to break someone
> >>> else's existing build system. The existing behaviour is precisely
> >>> documented in the manual (even if it's not necessarily the best
> >>> approach).
> >>>
> >>
> >> Original post asked for either change of behavior or documentation, I
> >> failed to find the precise documentation, care pointing out where
> >> exactly things are described in the manual?

http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/comp.html#sec263 describes how .mli and .ml are handled by the compiler (and when .cmi is generated or checked against) and the description of -I in http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/comp.html#sec264 explains that -I only adds search directories for compiled files, not source files.

> > Also, consider this:
> >
> 
> Better this (with safety nets in form of added -Is)
> 
> [malc@linmac2 mli]$ cat repro2.sh; sh repro2.sh
> #!/bin/sh
> set -x
> rm -fr a* d o
> 
> mkdir -p o d
> 
> echo 'type a = int and b = int' >a.ml
> echo 'type a = int' >d/a.mli
> 
> ocamlc -c -o o/a.cmi d/a.mli
> md5sum o/a.cmi
> ocamlc -I o -I d -c -o o/a.cmo a.ml
> md5sum o/a.cmi
> + rm -fr 'a*' d o
> + mkdir -p o d
> + echo 'type a = int and b = int'
> + echo 'type a = int'
> + ocamlc -c -o o/a.cmi d/a.mli
> + md5sum o/a.cmi
> dddf074fdfa94cad226485870c617116  o/a.cmi
> + ocamlc -I o -I d -c -o o/a.cmo a.ml
> + md5sum o/a.cmi
> bc44d889df40c61e43dbd94535ffd614  o/a.cmi
> 
> [..snip..]

This, again, is just the compiler acting exacting as it says it should! When you compile o/a.ml, ocamlc looks for ./a.mli and because it doesn't find it, it overwrites o/a.cmi (because of the -o switch).


David