Original bug ID: 3439
Reporter: administrator
Status: closed
Resolution: fixed
Priority: normal
Severity: minor
Category: ~DO NOT USE (was: OCaml general)

Bug description

Full_Name: Aleksey Nogin
Version: 3.08.2
OS: Fedora Core 2
Submission from: wasco.cs.caltech.edu (131.215.44.173)

I want to be able to compile a camlp4-based executable (which links in the
campl4.cm[x]a library) without a -linkall (which would result in a noticeably
smaller executable in my case). Unfortunatelly, it is impossible in the current
(3.08.2) state of things - the camlp4 processing relies on the Argl module to do
the "real job" of file processing, but without -linkall, the Argl module gets
dropped!

There are a number of things that can be done about it:

1. Users could link all camlp4 executables with -linkall. This is what I
   currently have to do, but this is obviously suboptimal (especially in case the
   executable also needs a bunch of other big libraries).

2. You could change the camlp4/camlp4/Makefile to use -linkall for building
   camlp4.cm[x]a. I should be sufficient (I have to admit - have not tested it yet)
   to just replace the "LINKFLAGS=$(INCLUDES)" on line 9 with
   "LINKFLAGS=$(INCLUDES) -linkall"! This is ideal, unless there are some valid
   reasons to link agains the camlp4.cm[x]a library and not use Argl (I doubt
   this is likely to happen)

3. You could change the camlp4/camlp4/Makefile to install the argl.cmo, argl.o,
   and argl.cmx into the "$(LIBDIR)/camlp4/.". This way users would be able to
   explicitly link in argl.cmx and not worry about it being dropped. (Not sure if
   that would require removing Argl from the camlp4.cm[x]a - if yes, than may be
   this is not such a good idea).

4. You could change the camlp4/camlp4/Makefile to install argl.cmi (by adding it
   to the line 76 that currently reads
   cp mLast.cmi quotation.cmi ast2pt.cmi pcaml.cmi spretty.cmi
   "$(LIBDIR)/camlp4/."). This way users could, for example, add "let _ = Argl.go"
   to one of the files compiled into my executable and I am good to go. This is a
   bit of a hack, obviously, but it is a possibility.

5. You could create some additional dependency on Argl (similar to 3) that users
   could then use to "pull in" the Argl module w/o haing to use -linkall.

6. Users could just copy argl.ml from the distribution and compile it into their
   binaries, instead of using the Argl in the camlp4.cm[x]a. This is obviously
   problematic.

IMHO, options "2" and "3" are much better than all others.

Thank you in advance for considering this!