This section describes how to prepare packages which contain applications written in OCaml, OCaml modules and OCaml language itself.

OCaml libraries should have names prefixed with ocaml- (examples: ocaml-camlp4, ocaml-odbc). Similarly tools that are only usable during OCaml development (like ocaml-otags or ocaml-mlglade) also should be prefixed with ocaml-. However programs, that have same general use outside OCaml development shouldn't. For example there is hevea package, not ocaml-hevea. Rationale: it should be easy to identify tools usable during ocaml development just by looking at their name. Also we don't want to clutter global package namespace (think about postgres package). However information that hevea is written in ocaml is of little importance to the end user. Package name should be all in lowercase. There is no HeVeA or any other WEirD-StUFF. Same goes for directory it is installed in. For example for ocaml-lablgl it is %{_libdir}/lablgl, not %{_libdir}/lablGL. Also findlib package names should be all in lowercase. Rationale: it is hard to remember capitalization of name, when it needs to be used in compiler flags.

When you create package with OCaml module, following files should be included in package: All *.cmi files. All *.cmx files. They contain small inline functions and therefore are needed during compilation. *.cma and *.cmxa archives. They are often called foo.cma and foo.cmxa *.a archives for corresponding *.cmxa (foo.a for foo.cmxa). *.a archives with compiled C parts of library (this is often libfoo.a). dll*.so dynamic link library for runtime system (dllfoo.so). If package contains parts written in C and doesn't produce dll*.so, you should fix it. See ocaml-odbc.spec for an example. Any examples. They are often very helpful. If there is just one, or two files, you can gzip them and put as %doc. Otherwise copy them to %{_examplesdir}. Following files should NOT be distributed: *.cmo object files. There is however one exception -- if file is needed for link (like gtkInit.cmo in lablgtk or std_exit.cmo in OCaml itself), then it should be of course included. *.o for corresponding *.cmx. They are included in *.a anyway. Exception -- as above. *.ml sources. *.mli interface sources. However, if package lacks any documentation (which is unfortunately often the case), you can include *.mli, but it should be gziped and placed in package as %doc.

Package with OCaml itself is split into several subpackages: ocaml-runtime ocamlrun and base dll*.so. ocaml Bytecode and native compilers, standard library, debugger and other tools. ocaml-camlp4 Pre Processor Pretty Printer. Provides: camlp4. ocaml-x11graphics Just dllgraphics.so. Not in ocaml-runtime since it requires XFree86-libs to run. ocaml-x11graphics-devel Development parts of Graphics module. Similar split holds for ocaml-labltk and ocaml-labltk-devel subpackages. ocaml-devel *.cm[iox] files resulting from compilation of OCaml compiler itself. It is needed by some programs. Standard OCaml library path is %{_libdir}/ocaml. %{_libdir}/ocaml/ld.conf contains just this directory (see below for details). OCaml C includes are placed in %{_includedir}/caml, but compatibility symlink %{_libdir}/ocaml/caml is provided. ocamlc and ocamlcopt are symlinked to ocamlc.opt and ocamlcopt.opt respectively. However ocamlc.byte and ocamlcopt.byte are also provided in case there are some problems with .opt compilers.

If package has dll*.so stuff, it should be split into two parts -- base package with just dll*.so and -devel subpackage with rest. If there is no dll*.so we produce just -devel subpackage. For example is library foo is written all in OCaml, so there is no dll*.so, you should make ocaml-foo.spec with no %files section for main package, just for ocaml-foo-devel. While having just -devel might seem odd, but: It is consistent. If OCaml will ever support dynamic loading (of either bytecode libraries or native code libraries (this can be done even now, but needs to be further investigated)), we won't have to change package names. Package named foo should be installed in %{_libdir}/ocaml/foo. Also dll*.so should go there, but there should be symlinks to them in %{_libdir}/ocaml. Therefore there is no need to modify %{_libdir}/ocaml/ld.conf. %{_libdir}/ocaml/foo should be owned by ocaml-foo, not by ocaml-foo-devel. Base package should use rpm macro %require_eq ocaml-runtime, while -devel package %require_eq ocaml, so they won't be installed with possibly incompatible OCaml version.

findlib is package management tool for OCaml libraries. Information about packages is stored in META files. Even if package use findlib to install itself, it should be placed in %{_libdir}/ocaml/foo, not in %{_libdir}/ocaml/site-lib/foo (this is to be consistent with packages not using findlib). However META file should be installed in %{_libdir}/ocaml/site-lib/foo/META. If there is no META file for package, you should consider creating one.

.c files should be compiled with %{__cc} (not gcc, cc nor ocamlc). During compilation standard %{rpmcflags} should be used (this is the same as with other packages in PLD). .ml should not be compiled with -g ocamlc option. If bundled Makefile does so, you should fix it.

As OCaml can now handle dynamic loading interactive systems are not of much use (one can always do #load "foobar.cma"). However if you feel interactive system linked with some library might be needed, separate it into -toplevel subpackage.