msvc-tools and OCaml/OPAM

[db4]

OPAM Makefile now has OCAML_PORT=msvc option that auto-detects Visual Studio and bootstrap working ((in theory) OCaml compiler. As an OCaml contributor, do you have any plans to integrate msvs-tools directly into OPAM and/or OCaml compiler build? So that one could write ./msvs-detect --arch=x86 somewhere in .comp compiler specification file and then do opam switch knowing that OPAM itself will set the necessary Visual Studio environment?

[dra27]

Yes, that's indeed planned (in fact, prototyped). With some additional changes based on ocaml/opam#2930, you can say things like:

opam switch 4.06.1-msvc64 ocaml-base-compiler.4.06.1 --arch=x86_64 --cc=cl

from an empty command prompt, and opam automatically uses msvs-detect to set-up the Microsoft C Compiler environment. When you switch to that switch, it automatically includes it via a proposed compiler package (see dra27/opam-repository@1ee6101).

I demonstrated this at ICFP last year, but it's not in a particularly usable state at the moment, as I've been rebasing and upstreaming, but I'm hoping to have a demonstrable version of it again soon!

[db4]

I see. Thanks a lot for you work!