[opam-devel] installext

[Louis Gesbert]

Just created https://github.com/AltGr/opam-installext to replace another bunch of shell-scripts. It's an OCaml script supposed to detect the correct flags for "installext", call OPAM to get the system dependencies of the packages supplied on the command-line, and use the system specific command for installing these packages.

This is a rough prototype intended to replace shell-scripts, but hopefully will pave the way to proper handling directly by OPAM, with a plugin architecture [1].

The idea is to have an instance of opam-in-a-box be generated by just

```
<package-manager> install <stuff> <editors> opam
opam init
opam install installext
opam installext <packages>
opam install <packages>
```

with the system stuff done in OCaml and split between opam-installext and opam-user-setup (which should be included in <packages>).

Be aware that the current prototype will call your package manager in non-interactive mode and run shell-scripts from the web.


Cheers,
Louis


[1] https://github.com/ocaml/opam/blob/master/doc/design/depexts-plugins