RE: [Caml-list] Development status of the dependency generator for OCaml

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

Markus Elfring wrote:
> >>> What are you regarding as erroneous about the entries with "only a
> >>> dependency on a single compiled module interface"
> >>> (for bytecode, that sounds correct to me).
> >>
> >> A software build system which can support the programming language
> “OCaml”
> >> to some some degree will contain generation rules for involved file
> >> types as you mentioned it also.
> >
> > I'm not clear how what you say relates to my question about
> 
> If you can tolerate that specific dependency specifications (like for ML
> and MLI files) can be missing, …

They're not missing - they're simply obviously and necessary as part of your Makefile rules because somewhere you need a recipe to build the files.

> > what you were finding erroneous.
> 
> … I find it questionable to repeat information for some CMO/CMX files when
> the corresponding details should be expressed by software build rules
> already.

It's pretty well-specified behaviour of make, though.

<snip>

> >>> foo.cmi:
> >>> foo.cmo: foo.cmi
> >>>
> >>> should simply not be printed, and be assumed to work with implicit
> >> rules?
> >>
> >> Yes. - In principle for the default data export variant.
> >
> > For the second example, the default is very clearly not going to
> > change (since ocamldep already exists).
> 
> Can further feature requests adjust the discussed software situation a bit
> more?
> 
> * “ocamldep -all” does not express dependencies on MLI files.
>   https://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=7593
> 
> * It seems that the main developers have got communication difficulties
>   with my style of clarification requests (or bug reports).

Your descriptions are, I'm afraid, vague, don't give a simple repro case, or the output you're expecting. For this particular PR, I'm afraid it looks like you blew Xavier's fuse at line 1. For example:

  Summary: .cmi files do not depend on .mli in output of ocamldep -all

  Description: ocamldep -all is supposed to include all dependencies in its output, but this doesn't appear to apply to .mli files.

  Steps to reproduce:
  <pre>
  DRA@Phantasos $ touch foo.mli
  DRA@Phantasos $ ocamldep -all foo.mli
  foo.cmi :
  </pre>

  Additional information:
  Expected output:
  <pre>
  foo.cmi : foo.mli
  </pre>

I don't know if changing that behaviour to include .mli dependency causes problems (I don't think it does) - it's why I originally said it surprised me, rather than that it was definitely a bug. However, given the odd ways in which .cmi files can be generated, I wonder if there is a subtle reason why depending on the .mli file may be hard to decide...

> > Personally, I'd find it very irritating to have to remember to add
> > %.cmo: %.cmi to my Makefiles
> 
> If you are using such make scripts, you have to specify make rules so that
> the desired OCaml commands will be called.

No - those rules will map %.cmo: %.ml or %.cmi: %.mli, there are no actions associated with %.cmo: %.cmi and hence no need for me to write it. 

> > (I'd already be irritated, as it would imply I was not using jbuilder,
> > but that's a separate story...)
> Do you prefer to use more advanced software development environments?

Ah, you may have hit on a slight naming problem: I mean https://github.com/janestreet/jbuilder, not an old Java IDE...


David