Release notes on OCaml Shared patch #4
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ELF32
=====

Only Linux i386 is supported, since i don't have access to other
ELF32 platforms.

Prerequisites:
        GNU binutils >= 2.12

Shared patch adds following command line options to ocamlopt:
       -shared    Link time. Build shared library.
       -dynamic   Link time. Turn on support for dynamic loading.
       -noasmrun  Don't link libasmrun.a.
       -nolinkstd Don't link stdlib.cmxa.

For instance 'ocamlopt -shared -o shared.so' shared.cmx will create
shared library 'shared.so', GNU linker script 'shared.so.a', and OCaml
library 'shared.so.cmxa'.

To use services, provided by Natdynlink module, '-dynamic' must be
specified when linking.

This port was tested on RedHat 7.3, Glibc 2.2.5, Binutils 2.12 and
later.

Win32
=====

Only 'Native MS' port of OCaml is supported.

Prerequisites:
        Everything 'Native MS' port requires.

Following ocamlopt command line options where added by shared patch:
       -shared      Compile time. Generate "shared" code.
       -dynamic     Link time. Turn on support for dynamic loading.
       -nolinkstd   Link time. Do not link stdlib.cmxa.
       -import list Compile time. List of "imported" modules.
       -dll         Link time. Build DLL.

Unlike ELF32, this port has two code generation modes: normal and
shared. Only modules compiled with -shared can be linked as DLLs,
be linked against OCaml produced DLLs or use Natdynlink. Also code
produced with -shared must use asmrun.dll(shared runtime) instead of
usual libasmrun.lib(static version).

Furthermore, if executable or DLL references anything from the module
defined in another executable or DLL, this module must be included
in import list. Import list is comma separated list of module names
and/or "response" files.
  list ::= spec
         | spec, list
  spec ::= Name
         | !filename
Names are case sensitive, no whitespace allowed in response files.

Win32 name spaces are not flat, hence care should be taken when
using same module in different DLLs/EXEs. (Again in contrast with
ELF32).

Only standard library is build in both static and shared variants.
(Natdynlink is obviously build only as shared)

Was tested on Win2k SP2, Microsoft Visual Studio'97 and MASM 6.11d.

Backtracing
===========

Some limited(hackish) support for backtracing is enabled when code
was compiled with '-backtrace' command line option. When 'b' is
contained within OCAMLRUNPARAM back traces will be printed even for
exceptions raised from C(regardless of '-backtrace').

Trace will include calls from functions where any kind of allocation
happens. Re-raised exceptions reset the trace so:
let moo a =
  try
    ... (* raises End_of_file somewhere *)
  with Not_found -> ...

will print the trace starting with 'moo' (where End_of_file was
implicitly raised).

ELF32:
ocamlopt -c -backtrace exn.ml
ocamlopt -ccopt -Wl,-E exn.cmx -o exn
OCAMLRUNPARAM=b ./exn

Win32:
ocamlopt -c -backtrace exn.ml
ocamlopt -ccopt -Zi exn.cmx -o exn
set OCAMLRUNPARAM=b 
exn