Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Version 1.0?

[Blair Z. <bl...@or...>]

John Max Skaller wrote:
> 
> Nicolas Cannasse wrote:
> 
> > I agree on this one . Modern software development and Internet are enabling
> > a quick bug reporting/fix and then users only have to update their version.
> > About this "update" and installation-made-easy of the ExtLib, I was thinking
> > writing a small and simple OCaml program that will check and download the
> > last extlib version , compile using ocamake (I think perhaps we should then
> > put ocamake in the ExtLib) and install it in  'ocamlc -where'/extlib .
> 
> I tried to do that once and users hated it :-)
> They wanted a plain old tarball. Still, software like Internet
> Explorer and Redhat Linux use this idea, but I suspect
> it would be more useful if it could update multiple packages,
> not just Extlib.

I agree a tarball release should be available.

> > I would like to have some comments from Unix users to know how we can make the
> > user being able to choose the install directory and still have a nice and
> > portable way of retreiving the install dir (needed by Makefile of program
> > using ExtLib at linking time).
> 
> You can make an executable which is put in, say
> 
>         /usr/local/bin
> 
> or
> 
>         ~/bin
> 
> extlib
> 
> which prints the install dir so people can write:
> 
>         ocamlc -I`extlib`
> 
> and add some options:
> 
>         extlib --help --version --test
> 
> it would also be tricky to have
> 
>         man extlib
> 
> tell where the installation went.

Instead of reinventing the wheel here, how about using pkg-config.  It
handles this kind of stuff and used by a large number of packages:

% ls /usr/lib/pkgconfig/
fontconfig.pc           gnome-python-2.0.pc*    libxml-2.0.pc
gconfgtk.pc             gobject-2.0.pc          libxml.pc
gconf.pc                gthread-2.0.pc          libxslt.pc
gdk.pc                  gthread.pc              openssl.pc*
glib-2.0.pc             gtk+.pc                 ORBit.pc
glib.pc                 libIDL.pc               xcursor.pc
gmodule-2.0.pc          libmetacity-private.pc  xft.pc
gmodule.pc              libnautilus.pc
gnome-mime-data-2.0.pc  libpng12.pc

You can query arbitrary settings for your package:

% pkg-config --help
Usage: pkg-config [OPTION...]
  --version                                      output version of pkg-config
  --modversion                                   output version for package
  --atleast-pkgconfig-version=VERSION            require given version of
                                                 pkg-config
  --libs                                         output all linker flags
  --libs-only-l                                  output -l flags
  --libs-only-L                                  output -L flags
  --cflags                                       output all pre-processor and
                                                 compiler flags
  --cflags-only-I                                output -I flags
  --variable=VARIABLENAME                        get the value of a variable
  --define-variable=VARIABLENAME=VARIABLEVALUE   set the value of a variable
  --exists                                       return 0 if the module(s)
                                                 exist
  --uninstalled                                  return 0 if the uninstalled
                                                 version of one or more
                                                 module(s) or their
                                                 dependencies will be used
  --atleast-version=VERSION                      return 0 if the module is at
                                                 least version VERSION
  --exact-version=VERSION                        return 0 if the module is at
                                                 exactly version VERSION
  --max-version=VERSION                          return 0 if the module is at
                                                 no newer than version VERSION
  --list-all                                     list all known packages
  --debug                                        show verbose debug information
  --print-errors                                 show verbose information
                                                 about missing or conflicting
                                                 packages
  --silence-errors                               show verbose information
                                                 about missing or conflicting
                                                 packages
  --errors-to-stdout                             print errors from
                                                 --print-errors to stdout not
                                                 stderr

Help options
  -?, --help                                     Show this help message
  --usage                                        Display brief usage message

Best,
Blair

-- 
Blair Zajac <bl...@or...>
Plots of your system's performance - http://www.orcaware.com/orca/