Bug#238257: race condition on timestamps for cmi/mli files

[Remi Vanicat <vanicat@debian.org>]

Mike Furr <mfurr@debian.org> writes:

> Package: ocaml-tools
> Version: 2003.10.03-1
> Severity: normal
>
> Hello ocaml-maint team,
>
> While playing around with the OpenGL bindings, I came across this
> annoying behavior with OCamlMakefile.  It seems that during the
> installation of lablgl, the following timestamps occured:
>
>  2004-01-16 02:18:32 -0500 gl.cmi
>  2004-01-16 02:18:33 -0500 gl.cmx
>  2004-01-16 02:18:33 -0500 gl.mli
>
> Therefore, when I try and compile the examples(with OCamlMakefile), it
> tries to recompile gl.mli -> gl.cmi.  While this is technically the
> correct behavior for OCamlMakefile, it makes it unusable unless I go
> in as root and touch the files in the right order.  However, as this
> race condition could occur in any ocaml package, I thought I would
> just report it here as a central point.  I guess the only way to truly
> correct this is to require all ocaml packages to ensure the timestamps
> are correct upon installation, but perhaps a work around could be
> implemented inside of OCamlMakefile itself instead.


What is strange here is that OCamlMakefile use explicit depend over
some system library. It should not even bother. He may even not know
that there exist a gl.cmi (and gl.mli) file. How do you use the
OCamlMakefile ?

-- 
Rémi Vanicat