[opam-devel] opam 1.3 status

[Thomas Gazagnaire]

Hi Louis.

all of this sounds very good. I'd just like to report 3 more features that various people have told me about this last months:

1/ `opam bundle`: it seems that a few existing projects don't want to tell their users to install OCaml and opam. They just want a stand-alone tarball that you can decompress and run `configure && make && make install`. There are already some patches from @ygrek doing this, that would be very cool to integrate the tool upstream

2/ local switch/root. few people reported that they would like to use a per-project opam root. This could be done easily by making the CLI check for a `.opam` directory in parent directories. Or it could work with a local config switch file (now that we have only one config file per switch), stored in the repository.

3/ local remotes. Currently the remote are per-switch which make them a bit annoying when you have a repo with dev packages. Currently it's easier to share a list of pins that a remote. So maybe extend `opam pin` to allow to take file of packages to pin -- actually it could already work with `opam switch import`, so maybe it's just a matter of documentation.

And last big item, that I haven't seen in your list: windows support: is this still on the map?

Thomas

> On 18 Dec 2015, at 08:47, Louis Gesbert <louis.gesbert at ocamlpro.com> wrote:
> 
> This is a summary of what's going on for 1.3, for all those who were wondering.
> This is not complete, and I may have forgotten stuff, don't hesitate to complete
> and comment.
> 
> I think a more redacted version of this would have its place on the platform
> blog, to show there is activity.
> 
> Note that I've also been busy helping out on the flambda compiler patch, which
> explains that things have been a bit slower on opam lately, but I am getting
> back on it full-time soon.
> 
> 
> 
> # Ongoing changes for 1.3
> 
> Lots has been going on, signature of the repository was the main goal for this
> release but it was then decided to prioritise some architectural changes and
> improvements and add signature on top of that for the release just after. So I
> feel there is a need to clarify all that's going on and what to expect for
> 1.3.0.
> 
> - Simplification of the ~/.opam architecture, store switch state in a single
>  file (done, but more changes pending)
> 
> - Refactoring of file handling, for better error reporting, more reliable code
>  and ease to extend (done)
> 
> - Much cleaner and flexible URL handling (including VC targets and specific
>  transports) (done)
> 
> - Refactoring of OpamState, lots of simplification on state loading, pinned
>  package handling. This should make it much easier to understand and maintain,
>  and also much more efficient (ongoing)
> 
> - Compilers as packages and disappearance of the .comp files, through making the
>  opam files much more generic. In practice, switch creation and compiler
>  installation are now internally treated as two different operations (ongoing,
>  most of it done but lacks a proper interface at the moment)
> 
> - Tracking of package installed files and reliable automatic removal (planned,
>  but the hard part is done)
> 
> - Setup of package configuration variables (planned)
> 
> ### Package definitions
> 
> - Inclusion of url and descr in the opam file format, to describe a package with
>  a single file (done)
> 
> - Better definition of package variables, self-references (done)
> 
> - Support for "dev" dependencies (done)
> 
> - Allow packages to define environment variables, possibly depending on other
>  variables or features (`setenv:` field) (done)
> 
> - Allow fields for use by external tools: `x-fieldname:` (done)
> 
> - Conflicts now consistently treated as disjunction (i.e. a formula that must
>  not be true) (done)
> 
> - Add `extra-sources:` for packages needing more than a single archive (e.g.
>  compiler packages) (planned)
> 
> - Allow to quote strings with pythonesque `"""` delimiters, for easier
>  integration of package descriptions (done)
> 
> - Possibility to depend on the hash on an arbitrary file on the system and
>  trigger reinstallation, e.g. to detect an updated system compiler (ongoing)
> 
> - New "canonical" and "format-preserving" printers, resp. for signing and
>  batch-editing files (done)
> 
> ### Other, smaller changes
> 
> - Ability to override switch default dirs using
>  switch/config/global-config.config. `opam config set` command (done)
> 
> - Support (and doc) for many different external solvers besides aspcud (done)
> 
> - Json output including command logs that could be usedd to browse the status
>  (done)
> 
> - More flexibility for install, reinstall, upgrade commands when the package
>  isn't in the expected state (already installed or not installed) (done)
> 
> There are also plans on easing cross-compilation and allowing operations across
> switches which are well underway (in large part thanks to Pietro Abate's
> efforts), but these are intended for the next minor release (e.g. 1.3.1).
> _______________________________________________
> opam-devel mailing list
> opam-devel at lists.ocaml.org
> http://lists.ocaml.org/listinfo/opam-devel