[Cocci] Addition of source code documentation generation to the build system?

SF Markus Elfring
2013-03-05T17:08:30Z

> I'm sorry but configure generates only constants containing paths,
> which specify - depending on the system configuration and preferences
> - where binaries/sources of various packages are located.

The Autotools infrastructure ensures that these macros will be applied by
Makefiles at the appropriate places.

> It does not generate invocations of the ocaml compiler nor of ocamldoc.

I agree because these tools do not belong to software which are supported by the
autoconf build system by default. I guess that this can be added by adjustments
of ".in" (or ".am" eventually) files easily.
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/automake-Invocation.html

> Like with all other tools, in order to use ocamldoc you'll need to
> make sure that it gets the appropriate inputs, such as compiled
> interface files.

I find it a technical challenge at the moment to collect the needed parameters
in a consistent way.

> However, it will involve manual labour.

I hope to avoid that.

> When I tried it once, ocamldoc failed to parse some sources, so you
> cannot expect it to handle evertything.

Thanks for your background information.

> As I wrote before, ocamlbuild has some hidden magic for documentation
> generation. So if you can get coccinelle to build with it, you might
> get documentation out as well without having to do a lot of work. Note
> that we do not officially support ocamlbuild so if it does not work
> for you, you can forget this last paragraph.

I hope that this aspect will change in the future.

Regards,
Markus