RE: [Caml-list] Recursive dependency issues

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

Kenneth Adam Miller wrote:
> I have a library that I'm building against.

An OCaml library, or a C library? (it's unclear from what you say later)

> I only consume an interface from 
> 2 specific directories; there are no other usages throughout my code. I would
> like to be able to link against the library, and have the compiler admit my 
> code so long as it uses the interfaces of the other libraries correctly. 
> Instead, I'm having to recursively specify all the dependencies of the library 
> I consume! 
> 
> I specify the location of my library with -ccopt -L location/to/it and then 

-ccopt is used with C libraries - are you sure you're trying to do the correct thing?

> afterward, have the cma or the cmxa before I specify my source that is being compiled. 
> 
> Should I statically link? What do I do to avoid the dependency hell?

You are (probably) statically linking - it sounds like you're mixing terminology. If you use an OCaml library foo.cmxa which depends on bar.cmxa then you do have to specify bar.cmxa before linking foo.cmxa - that's not dependency hell, it's just linking! There is a simple solution to this: ocamlfind. It manages all of the linking instructions for you simply by specifying the package that you need to be available.


David