Re: [Caml-list] Namespace clash

[Jonathan Roewen <jonathan.roewen@gmail.com>]

I made such a modification to ocaml compiler to do this, and submitted
my patch to mantis. I don't know if Xavier et al care too much about
my patch, but it is fairly trivial to implement (a string list ref,
and a fold).

Jonathan

On 2/9/06, Alessandro Baretta <a.baretta@barettadeit.com> wrote:
> Gentlemen--most specifically Xavier,
>
> Every other year I have mentioned on this list that I have encountered a module
> name clash problem, rendering some bit of code unusable and my life very
> miserable. It happened again today. Hence, this post, to help me relieve my
> frustration.
>
> Luckily, today I control one of the two modules whose names collide, so I can
> easily overcome the problem by renaming one file and changing all relevant
> references to it in a relativeley self-contained sub-project of my full source
> tree. Were it otherwise, I'd be in trouble. Let me state that I am currently
> managing a source tree comprising approximately ten man years of work and
> 236klocs as of today, including generated code. When a project grows to this
> size, it is relatively easy to produce such name clashes.
>
> The clashing modules are Liveness in the metanative.cmxa library of the
> MetaOcaml project and a Liveness module in a PLC application based on my
> AS/Xcaml. I realize that "liveness" is a meaningful word to a compiler author,
> but it also is to a automation engineer. It is doubtful that either the
> MetaOcaml team or I have a greater right to this name, and it is unreasonable to
> renounce many useful words just because they might be of common interest.
>
> Xavier's official position until now has been the following: "You guys have the
> -pack option; use it." This is probably the best solution overall, but it is
> hardly reconcilable with the fact that out there in the wild--and in my own
> repository--there are truckloads and truckloads of code that don't use it and
> that would need to be modified to use it, because of the need to explicity open
> in the projects source files all referenced libraries. Hence, it is impossibile
> for the build system to automatically manage namespacing issues.
>
> Probably, all that ocaml lacks to properly handle namespacing is a -open
> directive, telling the compiler to imply a "open Xxxx" at the beginning of all
> .ml and .mli files on the command line. Given this compiler flag, the build
> system could take care of everything.
>
> I'm sure there are other ways to solve this issue, and I'm non really trying to
> sell anyone my idea. As I stated, I'm just writing to relieve my frustration.
>
> Alex
>
> --
> *********************************************************************
>
> Ing. Alessandro Baretta
>
> Studio Baretta
> http://studio.baretta.com/
>
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>
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