Release notes on the MS Windows ports of OCaml ---------------------------------------------- There are no less than four ports of OCaml for MS Windows available: - a native Win32 port, built with the Microsoft development tools; - a native Win32 port, built with the 32-bit version of the gcc compiler from the mingw-w64 project, packaged in Cygwin (under the name mingw64-i686); - a port consisting of the Unix sources compiled under the Cygwin Unix-like environment for Windows; - a native Win64 port (64-bit Windows), built with the Microsoft development tools. Here is a summary of the main differences between these ports: Native MS Native MinGW Cygwin 64 bits? Win32 or Win64 Win32 only Win32 only Third-party software required - for base bytecode system none none none - for ocamlc -custom MSVC Cygwin Cygwin - for native-code generation MSVC+MASM Cygwin Cygwin Speed of bytecode interpreter 70% 100% 100% Replay debugger yes (**) yes (**) yes The Unix library partial partial full The Threads library yes yes yes The Graphics library yes yes no Restrictions on generated executables? none none yes (*) (*) Cygwin-generated .exe files refer to a DLL that is distributed under the GPL. Thus, these .exe files can only be distributed under a license that is compatible with the GPL. Executables generated by MSVC or by MinGW have no such restrictions. (**) The debugger is supported but the "replay" functions are not enabled. Other functions are available (step, goto, run...). The remainder of this document gives more information on each port. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The native Win32 port built with Microsoft Windows SDK ------------------------------------------------------ REQUIREMENTS: This port runs under MS Windows 7 (32 and 64 bits), Vista, XP, and 2000. The base bytecode system (ocamlc, ocaml, ocamllex, ocamlyacc, ...) runs without any additional tools. The native-code compiler (ocamlopt) requires the Microsoft Windows SDK (item [1]) and the flexdll tool (item [2]). Statically linking OCaml bytecode with C code (ocamlc -custom) also requires items [1] and [2]. INSTALLATION: The binary distribution is a self-installing executable archive. Just run it and it should install OCaml automatically. THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE: [1] Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. Can be downloaded for free from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx under the name "Microsoft Windows 7 SDK". [2] flexdll version 0.31 or later. Can be downloaded from http://alain.frisch.fr/flexdll.html RECOMPILATION FROM THE SOURCES: The command-line tools can be recompiled from the Unix source distribution (ocaml-X.YY.Z.tar.gz), which also contains the files modified for Windows. You will need the following software components to perform the recompilation: - Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, or 7 (32 or 64 bits). - Items [1] and [2] from the list of recommended software above. - The Cygwin port of GNU tools, available from http://www.cygwin.com/ Install at least the following packages (and their dependencies): diffutils, dos2unix, gcc-core, make, ncurses. First, you need to set up your cygwin environment for using the MS tools. The following assumes that you have installed [1], [2], and [3] in their default directories. If this is not the case, you will need to adjust the paths accordingly. Open a Windows Command Prompt and enter the following command: set PFPATH=C:\Program Files If you are compiling on the 64-bit version of Windows 7, enter the following instead: set PFPATH=C:\Program Files (x86) Then enter the following commands: cd "%PFPATH%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin" set FLEXDLLDIR=%PFPATH%\flexdll vcvars32 echo VCPATH="`cygpath -p '%Path%'`" >C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo LIBPATH="%LIBPATH%" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo INCLUDE="%INCLUDE%;%FLEXDLLDIR%" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo FLPATH="`cygpath '%FLEXDLLDIR%'`" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo PATH="$VCPATH:$FLPATH:$PATH" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo export PATH LIB LIBPATH INCLUDE >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo export OCAMLBUILD_FIND=/usr/bin/find >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv Open a Cygwin shell and enter the following commands: tr -d '\r' .msenv32 echo '. $HOME/.msenv32' >>.bashrc Now, close the Command Prompt and the shell and you're set up for using the MS tools under Cygwin. To recompile OCaml, start a new Cygwin shell and change to the top-level directory of the OCaml distribution. Then, do cp config/m-nt.h config/m.h cp config/s-nt.h config/s.h cp config/Makefile.msvc config/Makefile Then, edit config/Makefile as needed, following the comments in this file. Normally, the only variable that need to be changed is PREFIX where to install everything Finally, use "make -f Makefile.nt" to build the system, e.g. make -f Makefile.nt world make -f Makefile.nt bootstrap make -f Makefile.nt opt make -f Makefile.nt opt.opt make -f Makefile.nt install NOTES: * The VC++ compiler does not implement "computed gotos", and therefore generates inefficient code for byterun/interp.c. Consequently, the performance of bytecode programs is about 2/3 of that obtained under Unix/GCC or Cygwin or Mingw on similar hardware. * Libraries available in this port: "num", "str", "threads", "graphics", and large parts of "unix". * The replay debugger is partially supported (no reverse execution). CREDITS: The initial port of Caml Special Light (the ancestor of OCaml) to Windows NT was done by Kevin Gallo at Microsoft Research, who kindly contributed his changes to the OCaml project. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The native Win32 port built with Mingw -------------------------------------- REQUIREMENTS: This port runs under MS Windows Seven, Vista, XP, and 2000. The base bytecode system (ocamlc, ocaml, ocamllex, ocamlyacc, ...) runs without any additional tools. The native-code compiler (ocamlopt), as well as static linking of OCaml bytecode with C code (ocamlc -custom), require the Cygwin development tools, available at http://www.cygwin.com/ and the flexdll tool, available at http://alain.frisch.fr/flexdll.html You will need to install at least the following Cygwin packages (use the Setup tool from Cygwin): mingw64-i686-binutils mingw64-i686-gcc mingw64-i686-gcc-core mingw64-i686-runtime NOTES: - Do not use the Cygwin version of flexdll for this port. - There is another 32-bit gcc compiler, from the MinGW.org project, packaged in Cygwin under the name mingw-gcc. It is not currently supported by flexdll and OCaml. - The standard gcc compiler shipped with Cygwin used to support a "-mno-cygwin" option, which turned the compiler into a mingw compiler. This option was used by previous versions of flexdll and OCaml, but it is no longer available in recent version, hence the switch to another toolchain packaged in Cygwin. - The standalone mingw toolchain from the MinGW-w64 project (http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/) is not supported. Please use the version packaged in Cygwin instead. INSTALLATION: The binary distribution is a self-installing executable archive. Just run it and it should install OCaml automatically. RECOMPILATION FROM THE SOURCES: You will need the following software components to perform the recompilation: - Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, or Seven. - Cygwin: http://cygwin.com/ Install at least the following packages (and their dependencies, as computed by Cygwin's setup.exe): mingw64-i686-binutils mingw64-i686-gcc mingw64-i686-gcc-core mingw64-i686-runtime diffutils make ncurses - The flexdll tool (see above). Do not forget to add the flexdll directory to your PATH The standalone mingw toolchain from the MinGW-w64 project (http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/) is not supported. Please use the version packaged in Cygwin instead. Start a new Cygwin shell and unpack the source distribution (ocaml-X.YY.Z.tar.gz) with "tar xzf". Change to the top-level directory of the OCaml distribution. Then, do cp config/m-nt.h config/m.h cp config/s-nt.h config/s.h cp config/Makefile.mingw config/Makefile Then, edit config/Makefile as needed, following the comments in this file. Normally, the only variable that need to be changed is PREFIX where to install everything Finally, use "make -f Makefile.nt" to build the system, e.g. make -f Makefile.nt world make -f Makefile.nt bootstrap make -f Makefile.nt opt make -f Makefile.nt opt.opt make -f Makefile.nt install NOTES: * Libraries available in this port: "num", "str", "threads", "graphics", and large parts of "unix". * The replay debugger is partially supported (no reverse execution). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Cygwin port of OCaml ------------------------ REQUIREMENTS: This port requires the Cygwin environment from Cygnus/RedHat, which is freely available at: http://www.cygwin.com/ It also requires the flexdll tool, available at: http://alain.frisch.fr/flexdll.html This port runs under all versions of MS Windows supported by Cygwin. INSTALLATION: We do not distribute binaries for this port, but they can be found in the Cygwin distribution (use the Setup tool from Cygwin and select the OCaml packages). Alternatively, recompile from the source distribution. RECOMPILATION FROM THE SOURCES: Before starting, make sure that the gcc version installed by cygwin is not 4.5.3 (it has a bug that affects OCaml). If needed, use cygwin's setup.exe to downgrade to 4.3.4. You will need to recompile (and install) flexdll from source with Cygwin's C compiler because the official binary version of flexdll doesn't handle Cygwin's symbolic links and sometimes fails to launch the C compiler. In order to recompile flexdll, you first need to configure, compile, and install OCaml without flexdll support (configure with options -no-shared-libs -no-camlp4), then modify the flexdll Makefile to change line 51 from: LINKFLAGS = -ccopt "-link version_res.o" to: LINKFLAGS = -cclib version_res.o Then "make CHAINS=cygwin" and add the flexdll directory to your PATH. Make sure to add it before "/usr/bin" or you will get cygwin's flexlink. Then, in OCaml's source directory, type: make clean make distclean and follow the instructions for Unix machines given in the file INSTALL. NOTES: - There is a problem with cygwin's port of gcc version 4.5.3. You should use cygwin's setup program to downgrade to 4.3.4 before compiling OCaml. - The replay debugger is fully supported. - When upgrading from 3.12.0 to 3.12.1, you will need to remove /usr/local/bin/ocamlmktop.exe before typing "make install". - In order to use the "graph" library, you will need to use Cygwin's setup.exe to install the xinit, and libX11-devel packages before compiling OCaml. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The native Win64 port built with Microsoft Windows SDK ------------------------------------------------------ REQUIREMENTS: This port runs under MS Windows XP 64, Windows Server 64, and Windows 7 64 on Intel64/AMD64 machines. The base bytecode system (ocamlc, ocaml, ocamllex, ocamlyacc, ...) runs without any additional tools. Statically linking OCaml bytecode with C code (ocamlc -custom) requires the Microsoft Platform SDK compiler (item [1] in the section "third-party software" below) and the flexdll tool (item [2]). The native-code compiler (ocamlopt) requires the Microsoft compiler and the Microsoft assembler MASM64 (item [1]) and the flexdll tool (item [2]). INSTALLATION: There is no binary distribution yet. Please compile from sources as described below. THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE: [1] Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. Can be downloaded for free from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx under the name "Microsoft Windows 7 SDK". [2] flexdll version 0.31 or later. Can be downloaded from http://alain.frisch.fr/flexdll.html RECOMPILATION FROM THE SOURCES: The command-line tools can be recompiled from the Unix source distribution (ocaml-X.YZ.tar.gz), which also contains the files modified for Windows. You will need the following software components to perform the recompilation: - Windows XP 64, Windows Server 64, or Windows 7 64. - Items [1] and [2] from the list of recommended software above. - The Cygwin port of GNU tools, available from http://www.cygwin.com/ Install at least the following packages: diffutils, make, ncurses. First, you need to set up your cygwin environment for using the MS tools. The following assumes that you have installed [1] and [2] in their default directories. If this is not the case, you will need to adjust the paths accordingly. Open a Windows Command Prompt and enter the following commands: set PFPATH=C:\Program Files (x86) cd "%PFPATH%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin" vcvars64 echo VCPATH="`cygpath -p '%Path%'`" >C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo LIBPATH="%LIBPATH%" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo FLPATH="`cygpath '%PFPATH%\flexdll'`" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo PATH="$VCPATH:$FLPATH:$PATH" >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo export PATH LIB LIBPATH INCLUDE >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv echo export OCAMLBUILD_FIND=/usr/bin/find >>C:\cygwin\tmp\msenv Open a Cygwin shell and enter the following commands: tr -d '\r' .msenv64 echo '. $HOME/.msenv64' >>.bashrc Now, close the Command Prompt and the shell and you're set up for using the MS tools under Cygwin. To recompile OCaml, start a new Cygwin shell and change to the top-level directory of the OCaml distribution. Then, do cp config/m-nt.h config/m.h cp config/s-nt.h config/s.h cp config/Makefile.msvc64 config/Makefile Then, edit config/Makefile as needed, following the comments in this file. Normally, the only variable that need to be changed is PREFIX where to install everything Finally, use "make -f Makefile.nt" to build the system, e.g. make -f Makefile.nt world make -f Makefile.nt bootstrap make -f Makefile.nt opt make -f Makefile.nt opt.opt make -f Makefile.nt install NOTES: * Libraries available in this port: "num", "str", "threads", "graphics", and large parts of "unix". * The replay debugger is partially supported (no reverse execution). * The graphical browser ocamlbrowser is not supported.