Comment author: administrator

Full_Name: Stephanie Weirich
Version: 3.06
OS: Cygwin/Windows XP

Ok, here's a weird bug. If I reference an unknown module "Con", compilation
(with either ocaml,ocamlc, or ocamlopt) hangs. When I ^C ocaml I get an error
mesage saying that the compiled interface to this unknown module is
corrupted.

You've just bumped into a well-known windows trap: filenames with base
con or prn are reserved. This strange feature dates back to DOS, but
seems to be still there in XP (or is it a cygwin archaism?).
Those two file names represent devices (console and printer IIRC), and
will be selected independently of the extension.
Maybe caml could check for those names on windows?

Just avoid those names.

Jacques Garrigue

Comment author: administrator

Ok, here's a weird bug. If I reference an unknown module "Con",
compilation (with either ocaml,ocamlc, or ocamlopt) hangs.

You've just bumped into a well-known windows trap: filenames with base
con or prn are reserved.

Correct. And also LPT, COM1, COM2, NUL and AUX. And perhaps others --
this list is from memory.

This strange feature dates back to DOS, but
seems to be still there in XP (or is it a cygwin archaism?).

It's a Win32 archaism. I'd guess that Cygwin would work around this
if it were possible...

Maybe caml could check for those names on windows?

I'm less than enthusiastic about reflecting MSDOS cruft in the OCaml
sources... To me, that's just one of the miseries Windows users have
to put up with.

• Xavier Leroy

Comment author: administrator

Windows's MS-DOS heritage shows through :-)