Installing OCaml on a Unix machine ---------------------------------- PREREQUISITES * The GNU C compiler gcc is recommended, as the bytecode interpreter takes advantage of gcc-specific features to enhance performance. gcc is the standard compiler under Linux, MacOS X, and many other systems. * Under MacOS X 10.5, you need version 3.1 or later of the XCode development tools. The version of XCode found on MacOS X 10.5 installation media causes linking problems. XCode updates are available free of charge at http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/ * Under MacOS X up to version 10.2.8, you must raise the limit on the stack size with one of the following commands: limit stacksize 64M # if your shell is zsh or tcsh ulimit -s 65536 # if your shell is bash * If you do not have write access to /tmp, you should set the environment variable TMPDIR to the name of some other temporary directory. * Under HP/UX, the GNU C compiler gcc, the GNU assembler gas, and GNU make are all *required*. The vendor-provided compiler, assembler and make have major problems. * GNU make is needed to build ocamlbuild and camlp4. If your system's default make is not GNU make, you need to define the GNUMAKE environment variable to the name of GNU make, typically with this command: export GNUMAKE=gnumake INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS 1- Configure the system. From the top directory, do: ./configure This generates the three configuration files "Makefile", "m.h" and "s.h" in the config/ subdirectory. The "configure" script accepts the following options: -prefix (default: /usr/local) Set the PREFIX variable used to define the defaults of the following three options. Must be an absolute path name. -bindir (default: $(PREFIX)/bin) Directory where the binaries will be installed. Must be an absolute path name, or start with "$(PREFIX)" -libdir (default: $(PREFIX)/lib/ocaml) Directory where the OCaml library will be installed Must be an absolute path name, or start with "$(PREFIX)" -mandir (default: $(PREFIX)/man/man1) Directory where the manual pages will be installed Must be an absolute path name, or start with "$(PREFIX)" -cc (default: gcc if available, cc otherwise) C compiler to use for building the system -libs (default: none) Extra libraries to link with the system -no-curses Do not use the curses library. -host (default: determined automatically) The type of the host machine, in GNU's "configuration name" format (CPU-COMPANY-SYSTEM or CPU-COMPANY-KERNEL-SYSTEM). This info is generally determined automatically by the "configure" script, and rarely ever needs to be provided by hand. The installation instructions for gcc or emacs contain a complete list of configuration names. -target (default: same as -host) The type of the target machine, in GNU's "configuration name" format (CPU-COMPANY-SYSTEM or CPU-COMPANY-KERNEL-SYSTEM). Setting this will setup OCaml as a cross-compiler which runs on $host and produces code for $target. This requires a C toolchain which also produces code for $target and a native OCaml compiler of the exact same version (if you want a cross 4.00.1, you need a native 4.00.1). -x11include (default: determined automatically) -x11lib (default: determined automatically) Location of the X11 include directory (e.g. /usr/X11R6/include) and the X11 library directory (e.g. /usr/X11R6/lib). -tkdefs (default: none) -tklibs (default: determined automatically) These options specify where to find the Tcl/Tk libraries for LablTk. "-tkdefs" helps to find the headers, and "-tklibs" the C libraries. "-tklibs" may contain either only -L/path and -Wl,... flags, in which case the library names are determined automatically, or the actual libraries, which are used as given. Example: for a Japanese tcl/tk whose headers are in specific directories and libraries in /usr/local/lib, you can use ./configure -tklibs "-L/usr/local/lib -ltk8.0jp -ltcl8.0jp" -tkdefs "-I/usr/local/include/tcl8.0jp -I/usr/local/include/tk8.0jp" -tk-no-x11 Build LablTk without using X11. This option is needed on Cygwin. -no-tk Do not attempt to build LablTk. -no-pthread Do not attempt to use POSIX threads. -with-pthread Attempt to use POSIX threads (this is the default). -no-shared-libs Do not configure support for shared libraries -dldefs -dllibs These options specify where to find the libraries for dynamic linking (i.e. use of shared libraries). "-dldefs" specifies options for finding the header files, and "-dllibs" for finding the C libraries. -as (default: determined automatically) The assembler to use for assembling ocamlopt-generated code. -aspp (default: determined automatically) The assembler to use for assembling the parts of the run-time system manually written in assembly language. This assembler must preprocess its input with the C preprocessor. -with-debug-runtime Compile and install the debug version of the runtimes, useful for debugging C stubs and other low-level code. -verbose Verbose output of the configuration tests. Use it if the outcome of configure is not what you were expecting. -no-camlp4 Do not compile Camlp4. -no-debugger Do not build ocamldebug. -no-ocamldoc Do not build ocamldoc. -no-ocamlbuild Do not build ocamlbuild. -no-graph Do not compile the Graphics library. -partialld (default: determined automatically) The linker and options to use for producing an object file (rather than an executable) from several other object files. Examples: Standard installation in /usr/{bin,lib,man} instead of /usr/local: ./configure -prefix /usr Installation in /usr, man pages in section "l": ./configure -bindir /usr/bin -libdir /usr/lib/ocaml -mandir /usr/man/manl or: ./configure -prefix /usr -mandir '$(PREFIX)/man/manl' On a Linux x86/64 bits host, to build a 32-bit version of OCaml: ./configure -cc "gcc -m32" -as "as --32" -aspp "gcc -m32 -c" \ -host i386-linux -partialld "ld -r -melf_i386" On a Linux x86/64 bits host, to build the run-time system in PIC mode (enables putting the runtime in a shared library, at a small performance cost): ./configure -cc "gcc -fPIC" -aspp "gcc -c -fPIC" On a MacOSX 10.5/Intel Core 2 or MacOSX 10.5/PowerPC host, to build a 64-bit version of OCaml: ./configure -cc "gcc -m64" On a MacOSX 10.6/Intel Core 2, to build a 32-bit version of OCaml: ./configure -cc "gcc -m32" -as "as -arch i386" -aspp "gcc -m32 -c" For Sun Solaris with the "acc" compiler: ./configure -cc "acc -fast" -libs "-lucb" For Sun Solaris on Sparc 64bit, to compile natively (32bit only) ./configure -cc "gcc -m32" -as "as -32" -aspp "gcc -m32 -c" For AIX 4.3 with the IBM compiler xlc: ./configure -cc "xlc_r -D_AIX43 -Wl,-bexpall,-brtl -qmaxmem=8192" If something goes wrong during the automatic configuration, or if the generated files cause errors later on, then look at the template files config/Makefile-templ config/m-templ.h config/s-templ.h for guidance on how to edit the generated files by hand. 2- From the top directory, do: make world This builds the OCaml bytecode compiler for the first time. This phase is fairly verbose; consider redirecting the output to a file: make world > log.world 2>&1 # in sh make world >& log.world # in csh 3- (Optional) To be sure everything works well, you can try to bootstrap the system --- that is, to recompile all OCaml sources with the newly created compiler. From the top directory, do: make bootstrap or, better: make bootstrap > log.bootstrap 2>&1 # in sh make bootstrap >& log.bootstrap # in csh The "make bootstrap" checks that the bytecode programs compiled with the new compiler are identical to the bytecode programs compiled with the old compiler. If this is the case, you can be pretty sure the system has been correctly compiled. Otherwise, this does not necessarily mean something went wrong. The best thing to do is to try a second bootstrapping phase: just do "make bootstrap" again. It will either crash almost immediately, or re-re-compile everything correctly and reach the fixpoint. 4- If your platform is supported by the native-code compiler (as reported during the autoconfiguration), you can now build the native-code compiler. From the top directory, do: make opt or: make opt > log.opt 2>&1 # in sh make opt >& log.opt # in csh 5- Compile fast versions of the OCaml compilers, by compiling them with the native-code compiler (you have only compiled them to bytecode so far). Just do: make opt.opt Later, you can compile your programs to bytecode using ocamlc.opt instead of ocamlc, and to native-code using ocamlopt.opt instead of ocamlopt. The ".opt" compilers should run faster than the normal compilers, especially on large input files, but they may take longer to start due to increased code size. If compilation times are an issue on your programs, try the ".opt" compilers to see if they make a significant difference. An alternative, and faster approach to steps 2 to 5 is make world.opt # to build using native-code compilers The result is equivalent to "make world opt opt.opt", but this may fail if anything goes wrong in native-code generation. 6- You can now install the OCaml system. This will create the following commands (in the binary directory selected during autoconfiguration): ocamlc the batch bytecode compiler ocamlopt the batch native-code compiler (if supported) ocamlrun the runtime system for the bytecode compiler ocamlyacc the parser generator ocamllex the lexer generator ocaml the interactive, toplevel-based system ocamlmktop a tool to make toplevel systems that integrate user-defined C primitives and OCaml code ocamldebug the source-level replay debugger ocamldep generator of "make" dependencies for OCaml sources ocamldoc documentation generator ocamlprof execution count profiler ocamlcp the bytecode compiler in profiling mode and also, if you built them during step 5, ocamlc.opt the batch bytecode compiler compiled with ocamlopt ocamlopt.opt the batch native-code compiler compiled with ocamlopt ocamllex.opt the lexer generator compiled with ocamlopt From the top directory, become superuser and do: umask 022 # make sure to give read & execute permission to all make install 7- Installation is complete. Time to clean up. From the toplevel directory, do "make clean". 8- (Optional) The emacs/ subdirectory contains Emacs-Lisp files for an OCaml editing mode and an interface for the debugger. To install these files, change to the emacs/ subdirectory and do make EMACSDIR= install or make install In the latter case, the destination directory defaults to the "site-lisp" directory of your Emacs installation. 9- After installation, do *not* strip the ocamldebug and ocamlbrowser executables. (These are mixed-mode executables, containing both compiled C code and OCaml bytecode; stripping erases the bytecode!) Other executables such as ocamlrun can safely be stripped. IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG: Read the "common problems" and "machine-specific hints" section at the end of this file. Check the files m.h and s.h in config/. Wrong endianness or alignment constraints in m.h will immediately crash the bytecode interpreter. If you get a "segmentation violation" signal, check the limits on the stack size and data segment size (type "limit" under csh or "ulimit -a" under bash). Make sure the limit on the stack size is at least 4M. Try recompiling the runtime system with optimizations turned off (change CFLAGS in byterun/Makefile and asmrun/Makefile). The runtime system contains some complex, atypical pieces of C code that can uncover bugs in optimizing compilers. Alternatively, try another C compiler (e.g. gcc instead of the vendor-supplied cc). You can also build a debug version of the runtime system. Go to the byterun/ directory and do "make ocamlrund". Then, copy ocamlrund to ../boot/ocamlrun, and try again. This version of the runtime system contains lots of assertions and sanity checks that could help you pinpoint the problem. COMMON PROBLEMS: * The Makefiles do not support parallel make (e.g. make -j2). Fix: do not pass the -j option to make, and be patient. * The Makefiles use the "include" directive, which is not supported by all versions of make. Use GNU make if this is a problem. * The Makefiles assume that make executes commands by calling /bin/sh. They won't work if /bin/csh is called instead. You may have to unset the SHELL environment variable, or set it to /bin/sh. * On some systems, localization causes build problems. You should try to set the C locale (export LC_ALL=C) before compiling if you have strange errors while compiling OCaml. * gcc 2.7.2.1 generates incorrect code for the runtime system in -O mode on some Intel x86 platforms (e.g. Linux RedHat 4.1 and 4.2). If this causes a problem, the solution is to upgrade to 2.7.2.3 or above. * Some versions of gcc 2.96 for the Intel x86 (as found in RedHat 7.2, Mandrake 8.0 and Mandrake 8.1) generates incorrect code for the runtime system. The "configure" script tries to work around this problem. * On HP 9000/700 machines under HP/UX 9. Some versions of cc are unable to compile correctly the runtime system (wrong code is generated for (x - y) where x is a pointer and y an integer). Fix: use gcc.