[wg-windows] Fwd: [Caml-list] User Report: Cygwin32 OPAM for MinGW OCaml 64

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Jun Furuse <jun.furuse at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Caml-list] User Report: Cygwin32 OPAM for MinGW OCaml 64
> Date: 30 September 2015 16:00:04 BST
> To: caml-list <caml-list at inria.fr>
> Reply-To: Jun Furuse <jun.furuse at gmail.com>
> 
> Hi List,
> 
> I have played a bit with Cygwin OPAM to install packages for MinGW
> 64bit OCaml system, and finally got succeeded to install core_kernel
> by `opam install core_kernel`.  It required several fixes of
> OCaml+OPAM configurations and patching to packages but now I think I
> got enough know-how and share it with the community.
> 
> To use Cygwin32 OPAM smoothly for MinGW64 OCaml you need:
> 
> * /usr/bin/ar of Cygwin32 did not work for MinGW OCaml 64. I had to
> use a special ar command for MinGW64.
> * Many build scripts assume Unix commands.  You need to add Cygwin's
> /bin directory to Windows PATH
> * global-config.config and system.comp must be fixed so that directory
> and paths can be understandable by MinGW OCaml, a Windows app
> 
> Many packages can be installed without any modification to them.
> Therefore Cygwin OPAM is already very useful for MinGW OCaml package
> installation.  However, some packages required fixes and here are some
> tips:
> 
> * Use "mixed path" obtained by cygpath -m, so that the paths can be
> understandable both for Cygwin and for MinGW
> * Build systems like Oasis executes commands not using /bin/sh but
> cmd.exe in MinGW.  _oasis or setup.ml contains lots of Unix shell
> phrases like   mkdir $dir; build something  which are wrongly executed
> by cmd.exe.  You need to fix them so that they can be interpreted by
> sh, i.e.  sh -c "mkdir $dir; build something"
> * In Unix, files in xxx.install are ignored by OPAM when they are
> already installed by OPAM's install section.  However, in Cygwin, it
> sometimes fails.  It is due to Cygwin's special handling of files with
> .exe extension.  You need remove entries from xxx.install if they are
> installed by the install section.
> 
> I hope this information helps you.  More details or work log can be
> found here: https://bitbucket.org/camlspotter/opamingw
> 
> Enjoy OPAMinGW!
> Jun Furuse
> 
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