<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN""http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >The findlib User's Guide</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="User's Guide" HREF="p35.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="BOOK" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="BOOK" ><A NAME="AEN1" ></A ><DIV CLASS="TITLEPAGE" ><H1 CLASS="TITLE" ><A NAME="AEN1" >The findlib User's Guide</A ></H1 ><H3 CLASS="AUTHOR" ><A NAME="AEN5" ></A >Gerd Stolpmann</H3 ><P CLASS="COPYRIGHT" >Copyright © 1999-2003 Gerd Stolpmann</P ><DIV ><DIV CLASS="ABSTRACT" ><P ></P ><A NAME="AEN15" ></A ><P >The "findlib" library provides a scheme to manage reusable software components (packages), and includes tools that support this scheme. Packages are collections of OCaml modules for which metainformation can be stored. The packages are kept in the filesystem hierarchy, but with strict directory structure. The library contains functions to look the directory up that stores a package, to query metainformation about a package, and to retrieve dependency information about multiple packages. There is also a tool that allows the user to enter queries on the command-line. In order to simplify compilation and linkage, there are new frontends of the various OCaml compilers that can directly deal with packages.</P ><P >Together with the packages metainformation is stored. This includes a version string, the archives the package consists of, and additional linker options. Packages can also be dependent on other packages. There is a query which finds out all predecessors of a list of packages and sorts them topologically. The new compiler frontends do this implicitly.</P ><P >Metainformation can be conditional, i.e. depend on a set of predicates. This is mainly used to be able to react on certain properties of the environment, such as if the bytecode or the native compiler is invoked, if the application is multi-threaded, and a few more. If the new compiler frontends are used, most predicates are found out automatically.</P ><P >There is special support for scripts. A new directive, "#require", loads packages into scripts.</P ><DIV CLASS="FORMALPARA" ><P ><B >Download findlib. </B >This manual describes version 1.2.1 of the software package. It can be downloaded at <A HREF="http://download.camlcity.org/download" TARGET="_top" >http://download.camlcity.org/download</A >. The user's guide and the reference manual are included. Newest releases of "findlib" will be announced in <A HREF="http://links.camlcity.org" TARGET="_top" >The OCaml Link Database</A >.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="FORMALPARA" ><P ><B >Quickstart. </B >See also the <A HREF="http://projects.camlcity.org/projects/dl/findlib-1.2.1/doc/QUICKSTART" TARGET="_top" >Quickstart page</A > for instructions for the most common cases.</P ></DIV ><P ></P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="LEGALNOTICE" ><A NAME="AEN29" ></A ><P ><B >License</B ></P ><P >This document, and the described software, "findlib", are copyright by Gerd Stolpmann.</P ><P >Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this document and the "findlib" software (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:</P ><P >The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.</P ><P >The Software is provided ``as is'', without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall Gerd Stolpmann be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the Software or the use or other dealings in the software.</P ></DIV ><HR></DIV ><DIV CLASS="TOC" ><DL ><DT ><B >Table of Contents</B ></DT ><DT >I. <A HREF="p35.html" >User's Guide</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT >1. <A HREF="c37.html" >Libraries and Packages</A ></DT ><DT >2. <A HREF="c74.html" >Using packages</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT ><A HREF="c74.html#AEN76" >Listing the installed packages</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x81.html" >Looking up package directories</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x89.html" >How a package directory looks like</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x104.html" >Querying information stored in META files</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x115.html" >How to compile and link a program that uses a package</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x131.html" >Dependencies</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x145.html" >Linker options</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ><DT >3. <A HREF="c157.html" >Dependency analysis of packages</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT ><A HREF="c157.html#AEN159" >Querying ancestors</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x176.html" >Querying descendants</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ><DT >4. <A HREF="c188.html" >A new frontend for ocamlc</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT ><A HREF="c188.html#AEN190" >Compiling and linking</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x227.html" >Toploops and runtime systems</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x261.html" >Multi-threaded applications</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x270.html" >Support for gprof-enabled modules</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ><DT >5. <A HREF="c274.html" >Complex packages</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT ><A HREF="c274.html#AEN276" >The standard predicates</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x307.html" >Defining additional predicates</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x322.html" >Appending to variables</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x334.html" >Subpackages</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x341.html" >Glue code</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ><DT >6. <A HREF="c348.html" >How to create your own packages</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT ><A HREF="c348.html#AEN350" >Installing and removing packages</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x355.html" >Change your Makefile</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x372.html" >Using the Makefile wizard</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ><DT >7. <A HREF="c380.html" >FAQs</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT ><A HREF="c380.html#AEN382" >Does findlib support the autolink feature of O'Caml 3?</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x394.html" >Why does findlib not automatically include the -custom option if linked with C code?</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x400.html" >Does findlib support linking of applications as well as packages?</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x412.html" >Does Findlib support camlp4?</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x464.html" >Why do some people install the .cmx files?</A ></DT ><DT ><A HREF="x468.html" >How do I express conflicts?</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ></DL ></DD ></DL ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="p35.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >User's Guide</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >