[Ocaml-lib-devel] IO.input / Lexing.lexbuf

[Peter J. <pe...@jo...>]

A recent project required me to parse gzipped XML files using Xml-Light.
 The most convenient way to access the gzipped files was using Extlib's
Unzip.inflate on an IO.input stream.  However, since Xml-Light does not
support IO or the standard OO file interface (it only supports input
from files, Pervasives streams, strings, and lexbufs), it was necessary
to define a wrapper function:

  let lexbuf_of_input i =
    Lexing.from_function
      (fun s n ->
        try
          IO.input i s 0 n
        with IO.No_more_input ->
          0);;

I just wonder whether it might be worth adding a couple of conversion
functions along these lines to the IO module, since I can imagine them
being generally useful?  The code is trivial, but one of the things I
value Extlib for is that it reduces the need for boilerplate like this.