ocamlbuild's symlink behavior

ocamlbuild's symlink behavior

[Eric Cooper]

Ocamlbuild seems to create a symbolic link into the _build directory
when you build a single target.  But it removes that symlink if you
build a different target, and it doesn't produce any symlinks if you
build a *.otarget.

Is there any rationale for this?  It makes it difficult to use the
resulting symlinks in any kind of build script.

-- 
Eric Cooper             e c c @ c m u . e d u

Re: [Caml-list] ocamlbuild's symlink behavior

[Ashish Agarwal]

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It is probably better to refer to the executables under _build in external
scripts.


On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Eric Cooper <ecc@cmu.edu> wrote:
> Ocamlbuild seems to create a symbolic link into the _build directory
> when you build a single target. But it removes that symlink if you
> build a different target, and it doesn't produce any symlinks if you
> build a *.otarget.
>
> Is there any rationale for this? It makes it difficult to use the
> resulting symlinks in any kind of build script.
>
> --
> Eric Cooper e c c @ c m u . e d u
>

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Re: [Caml-list] ocamlbuild's symlink behavior

[Nicolas Pouillard]

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Excerpts from Ashish Agarwal's message of Tue Mar 04 02:26:33 +0100 2008:
> It is probably better to refer to the executables under _build in external
> scripts.
> 
> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Eric Cooper <ecc@cmu.edu> wrote:
> > Ocamlbuild seems to create a symbolic link into the _build directory
> > when you build a single target. But it removes that symlink if you
> > build a different target, and it doesn't produce any symlinks if you
> > build a *.otarget.
> >
> > Is there any rationale for this? It makes it difficult to use the
> > resulting symlinks in any kind of build script.

That's right, symlinks was more to explain the user where things are.

-- 
Nicolas Pouillard aka Ertai

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Re: [Caml-list] ocamlbuild's symlink behavior

[Berke Durak]

Nicolas Pouillard a écrit :
> Excerpts from Ashish Agarwal's message of Tue Mar 04 02:26:33 +0100 2008:
>> It is probably better to refer to the executables under _build in external
>> scripts.
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Eric Cooper <ecc@cmu.edu> wrote:
>>> Ocamlbuild seems to create a symbolic link into the _build directory
>>> when you build a single target. But it removes that symlink if you
>>> build a different target, and it doesn't produce any symlinks if you
>>> build a *.otarget.
>>>
>>> Is there any rationale for this? It makes it difficult to use the
>>> resulting symlinks in any kind of build script.
> 
> That's right, symlinks was more to explain the user where things are.

I have an idea.  Remove symlinks pointing to the _build directory *only*
if the basename of the symlink is the same as the basename of the target.

Hence, if I have toto.native in project/_build and toto.native in project
pointing to project/_build/toto.native, it would get deleted when ocamlbuild
is invoked without toto.native as a target.

However I can create a link project/toto.opt that links to project/_build/toto.native
and it wouldn't get deleted by myocamlbuild.

This would also be a way to respond to people who find the ".native" extension
too long - tell them that they would be better of creating their own symlinks anyway.
-- 
Berke DURAK