Hello
Here is the latest Caml Weekly News, for the week of July 31 to August 21, 2007.
I thought people might be interested to know how OCaml in Fedora & Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is getting along. We had the packaging guidelines approved about 6 weeks ago which allowed packages to start being reviewed (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/OCaml). Since then we have rebased to OCaml 3.10.0 and packaged up the following: ocamlsdl, camlimages, ocurl, expat, extlib, findlib, lablgl, lablgtk2, pcre, ocaml-ssl and ulex. The following packages are still at various stages in the development or review process: calendar, ocamlnet, cduce, coq, PXP, ocaml-csv. Interested in joining? Add your name to our SIG: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/OCaml Want to suggest a package for inclusion in Fedora? Please email me. To use the packages, enable the Fedora Development repository (/etc/yum.repos.d/development.repo) and just 'yum install ocaml...' The complete list of OCaml packages and their versions is shown below. Rich. ocaml-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-SDL-0.7.2-7.fc7.x86_64.rpm ocaml-SDL-devel-0.7.2-7.fc7.i386.rpm ocaml-SDL-devel-0.7.2-7.fc7.x86_64.rpm ocaml-camlimages-2.2.0-8.fc7.x86_64.rpm ocaml-camlimages-devel-2.2.0-8.fc7.i386.rpm ocaml-camlimages-devel-2.2.0-8.fc7.x86_64.rpm ocaml-camlp4-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-camlp4-devel-3.10.0-1.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-camlp4-devel-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-curl-0.2.1-3.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-curl-devel-0.2.1-3.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-curl-devel-0.2.1-3.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-docs-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-emacs-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-expat-0.9.1-4.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-expat-devel-0.9.1-4.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-expat-devel-0.9.1-4.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-extlib-1.5-5.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-extlib-devel-1.5-5.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-extlib-devel-1.5-5.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-findlib-1.1.2pl1-10.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-findlib-devel-1.1.2pl1-10.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-findlib-devel-1.1.2pl1-10.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-lablgl-1.02-12.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-lablgl-devel-1.02-12.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-lablgl-devel-1.02-12.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-lablgtk-2.6.0-8.20060908cvs.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-lablgtk-devel-2.6.0-8.20060908cvs.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-lablgtk-devel-2.6.0-8.20060908cvs.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-lablgtk-doc-2.6.0-8.20060908cvs.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-labltk-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-labltk-devel-3.10.0-1.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-labltk-devel-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-ocamldoc-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-pcre-5.11.4-6.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-pcre-devel-5.11.4-6.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-pcre-devel-5.11.4-6.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-runtime-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-source-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-ssl-0.4.2-3.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-ssl-devel-0.4.2-3.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-ssl-devel-0.4.2-3.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-ulex-1.0-3.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-ulex-devel-1.0-3.fc8.i386.rpm ocaml-ulex-devel-1.0-3.fc8.x86_64.rpm ocaml-x11-3.10.0-1.fc8.x86_64.rpmJon Harrop said and Stefano Zacchiroli answered:
> I don't believe the Debian packages for 3.10 have filtered through but I was Actually, they are available in experimental. A summary page of what's going on in Debian wrt OCaml versions is available at: http://sockmel.bononia.it/~zack/ocaml-debian-status/debian-ocaml-status.html What is stopping a full migration to unstable is that some major OCaml related packages haven't yet been ported by the respective author to OCaml 3.10 and are experiencing CamlP4-related incompatibilities. > so desperate to use the awesome new natdynlink branch that upgraded to that > from CVS and rebuilt almost all packages from the existing Debian source > packages with: FWIW, all OCaml related packages in Debian should have a Vcs-Svn field pointing to the subversion repository we are using for maintenance (you can see it with "apt-get showsrc"). There you can find the current working version of the Debian package.
> Well the problem was that I wanted to do this:
> class lexstack top_filename
> object
> val mutable filename = top_filename
> val mutable chan = open_in top_filename
> val lexbuf = Lexing.from_channel chan
> Oops, error message right there ^^^^^^ trying to use instance
> variable chan.
Interesting, because the example you describe here is precisely the
reason it is not allowed (at least as Jerome Vouillon explained to
me.)
That is, you intend the instance variable lexbuf to be the one
associated to the current (mutable) chan, but if you change chan this
will no longer be true.
So, in order to avoid this kind of ambiguity, you have to use let
defined variables. For instance:
class lexstack top_filename =
let init_chan = open_in top_filename in
object
val mutable filename = top_filename
val mutable chan = init_chan
val mutable lexbuf_chan = init_chan
val mutable lexbuf = Lexing.from_channel init_chan
method lexbuf =
if chan == lexbuf_chan then lexbuf else
(lexbuf <- Lexing.from_channel chan; lexbuf_chan <- chan)
...
Note that this restriction applies also to immutable instance
variables, because you can modify them through functional update
(the {< chan = ... >} notation.)
> When is the Str module going to be extended to provide > re-entrant operations?? When someone designs a new interface to Str and gets it approved by a few respectable members of this community. A proof-of-concept implementation wouldn't hurt either, although I'm OK with writing the final implementation. It's the API for which I don't have ideas. > I understand (perhaps incorrectly) that Xavier rewrote the > code for this module, and assume the underlying functionality > is re-entrant? Correct.
We are proud to announce the latest release of the OMake Build System -
OMake version 0.9.8.5.
OMake is a build system designed for scalability and portability. It
uses a syntax similar to make utilities you may have used, but it
features many additional enhancements, including the following.
- Support for projects spanning several directories or directory
hierarchies.
- Fast, reliable, automated, scriptable dependency analysis using MD5
digests, with full support for incremental builds.
- Fully scriptable, includes a library that providing support for
standard tasks in C, C++, OCaml, and LaTeX projects, or a mixture
thereof.
Often, a configuration file is as simple as a single line
.DEFAULT: $(OCamlProgram prog, foo bar baz)
which states that the program "prog" is built from the files foo.ml,
bar.ml, and baz.ml. This one line will also invoke the default
standard library scripts for discovering implicit dependencies in
OCaml files.
- Full native support for rules that build several files at once.
- Portability: omake provides a uniform interface on Linux/Unix
(including 64-bit architectures), Win32, Cygwin, Mac OS X, and other
platforms that are supported by OCaml.
- Built-in functions that provide the most common features of programs
like grep, sed, find, and awk. These are especially useful on Win32.
- Active filesystem monitoring, where the build automatically restarts
whenever you modify a source file. This can be very useful during
the edit/compile cycle.
- A built-in command-interpreter osh that can be used interactively.
OMake preserves the style of syntax and rule definitions used in
Makefiles, making it easy to port your project to OMake. There is no
need to code in Perl (cons), or Python (scons). However, there are a few
things to keep in mind:
1. Indentation is significant, but tabs are not required.
2. The OMake language is functional: functions are first-class and
there are no side-effects apart from I/O.
3. Scoping is dynamic.
OMake is licensed under a mixture of the GNU GPL license (OMake engine
itself) and the MIT-like license (default configuration files).
Additional information and extensive documentation can be found on OMake
Home Page at http://omake.metaprl.org/
OMake 0.9.8.5 is substantial feature enhancements and bugfixes release.
The changes in this release include:
- Fixed Ctrl-C handling on Windows (with now correctly interrupt
OMake)
- Added .STATIC and .MEMO rules, allowing defining lazy computations
and lazy memoization maps
- Added export sections, making it much easier to manage variable
scoping
- Fields in sub-objects can now be referenced directly
- Many new built-in and library functions
- Significant bug-fixes
For a more verbose change log, please visit
http://omake.metaprl.org/changelog.html#0.9.8.5 .
Source and binary packages of OMake 0.9.8.5 may be downloaded from
http://omake.metaprl.org/download.html . In addition, OMake may be
obtained via the GODI packaging system.
To try it out, run the command "omake --install" in a project directory,
and modify the generated OMakefile.
OMake 0.9.8.5 is still an alpha release. While we have made an effort
to ensure that it is bug-free, it is possible some functions may not
behave as you would expect. Please report any comments and/or bugs to
the mailing list omake@metaprl.org and/or at http://bugzilla.metaprl.org/
I am pleased to announce the first public release of OCaml Curses, which is an OCaml binding to the curses/ncurses library. This project was formerly called OCaml TMK, and all the actual work on it was done by Nicolas George. The project homepage is: http://www.nongnu.org/ocaml-tmk/ The released version for download is currently here (until I can work out how to make releases on the Savannah site ...) http://annexia.org/tmp/ocaml-curses-1.0.0.tar.gz http://annexia.org/tmp/ocaml-curses-1.0.0.tar.gz.sig Mailing list: http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/ocaml-tmk-devel I'd like to add competent and interested developers to the Savannah project, particularly the Debian folks who were interested in packaging this. Please mail me privately.
A new mailing list, ocaml-jobs@inria.fr, has been created, to post announces regarding jobs and internships for OCaml developers. Feel free to register at the following address: https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/ocaml-jobs Do not hesitate to forward this message to interested people who do not read the caml-list.Yaron Minsky asked and Maxence Guesdon answered:
> Does this imply that job announcements are no longer welcome on the ocaml > list proper? I'm worried that the new list will not be subscribed to > quite as widely as the caml list... Job announcements are still welcome on the caml-list. The new list is for people not following high-level discussions on the caml-list but are interested in job announcements; it is a way to contact people "explicitly" interested in job announcements, whether they are employers or "ocaml developers for rent".
> Is there an actively supported unit testing library/framework for Ocaml? I believe the Iinteractive people actively use TestSimple internally, but they haven't updated the project website to show 0.02, which I have a copy of, and there may exist more recent versions as well. Announcement: http://yquem.inria.fr/pipermail/caml-announce/2007-January/000009.html Webpage: http://www.iinteractive.com/ocaml/ Maybe this message will provoke an update.Jeff Meister also answered:
There's OUnit, but I don't know if it's actively maintained. You'd have to ask Mr. Zeeman. http://www.xs4all.nl/~mmzeeman/ocaml/ounit-doc/OUnit.html
This is on the first page of Digg at the moment ... http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/cars.html
Here is a quick trick to help you read this CWN if you are viewing it using vim (version 6 or greater).
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zM
If you know of a better way, please let me know.
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