RE: [Caml-list] Building MSVC ports: coreutils link conflict

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

Damien Doligez wrote:
> On 2015-07-17, at 17:42, David Allsopp wrote:
> 
> > Given that this conflict is only over link.exe - all the other tools in
> the Microsoft toolchain are sensibly, or at least moderately uniquely,
> named - would a patch to the compiler (and to flexlink) which searches the
> various directories in PATH in order and identifies the first link.exe
> which is actually a Microsoft Linker be welcomed (i.e. merged) - an ML-
> equivalent to [1], but only used if the linker has been specified given as
> "link" (i.e. with no directory)? I'm happy to patch it, but only if it
> would be wanted. I don't see a case for doing it for other commands, but
> with a conflict in something in coreutils it seems OK to make an
> exception, at least to me?
> 
> Yuck. IMO it would be better to add a configure-time option to give the
> absolute path to the link executable.

Is OCaml soon to be configured on Windows using the standard configure script (I know there's been some work on it?)? I have dealt with it similarly at configure-time in OPAM. I agree that using an absolute path to the link executable would in general be better. That said, what do you think of Alain's suggestion to offload the entire problem to FlexDLL?

> In the meantime, what you can do is:
> 
> - create an empty directory (for example, /usr/local/bin/ms-tools)
> - put a copy of (or a symlink to) Microsoft's link.exe into it
> - add it in front of your path

I realise how to solve it!! My point was trying to simplify the myriad instructions for compiling and using a Windows port of OCaml. "symlink to" also needs many more instructions if it's going to work!


David