[Caml-list] Portable way to retrieve and unpack tar files from github

[Caml-list] Portable way to retrieve and unpack tar files from github

[Helmut Brandl]

Hello list,

I am looking for a portable way to retrieve tar files from github and 
unpacking them.

I could use system calls to "wget https://www.github.com.." and "tar xzf 
tarfile.tar.gz",  but this works only in environments where tar and wget 
are available i.e. possibly not on windows and maybe not on MacOS machines.

Is there any library available on then opam repository to do this in a 
portable way. Thanks for any hint.

Regards
Helmut

RE: [Caml-list] Portable way to retrieve and unpack tar files from github

[David Allsopp]

Helmut Brandl wrote:
> I am looking for a portable way to retrieve tar files from github and
> unpacking them.
> 
> I could use system calls to "wget https://www.github.com.." and "tar xzf
> tarfile.tar.gz",  but this works only in environments where tar and wget
> are available i.e. possibly not on windows and maybe not on MacOS
> machines.
> 
> Is there any library available on then opam repository to do this in a
> portable way. Thanks for any hint.

While the Windows support may not (yet) be perfect, ocurl (https://opam.ocaml.org/packages/ocurl/) and tar-format (https://opam.ocaml.org/packages/tar-format/) provide a route. There are certainly other alternatives to ocurl (ocamlnet, for example - I think it may even be possible to do it without needing a C library at all). Note that unpacking a tarball is an inherently difficult portable problem in itself where Windows support is concerned.


David