Re: [Caml-list] OCaml for system programming?

[David Mentre <David.Mentre@inria.fr>]

"emil artin" <emil.artin@web.de> writes:

>  But I don't know if it is managable at all!!

OCaml is able to read and write bytes on a Unix file descriptor, it is
also able to handle bit operations and you have both Int32 and Int64
data types. So it should be doable. The only lacking C feature is C
struct. 

However, I'm not sure it will be easier to do those low level
manipulations in OCaml than in C.

> It would be interesting (at least for me) to know if one can do things
> like file system implementation in OCaml?

If you are thinking of doing an OCaml linux kernel module to implement a
filesystem, clearly you can't do it (mainly due to the GC that needs the
glibc malloc() and/or sbrk() and would have to work in the kernel
address space).

Now, if you are speaking of doing a pure userland filesystem tool, it
should be doable, as said above.

If you progress in this direction, I would be personnaly interested to
have your feedback on the point.

Best regards,
d.
-- 
 David.Mentre@inria.fr
 Opinions expressed here are only mine.
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