[cwn] Attn: Development Editor, Latest Caml Weekly News
Alan Schmitt
alan.schmitt at polytechnique.org
Tue Feb 20 01:09:58 PST 2007
Hello,
Here is the latest Caml Weekly News, for the week of February 20 to
27, 2007.
1) An OCaml Summer Project proposal
2) OS X, main program in C, No bytecode file specified
3) OCaml SQLite3 bindings
4) LSD mount utilities, version 1.3
========================================================================
1) An OCaml Summer Project proposal
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
18f8f11dc06982c7/607161c6bc08f816#607161c6bc08f816>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** David MENTRE announced:
If you are a student, you want to apply to OCaml Summer Project
(<http://osp2007.janestcapital.com/>) but you don't have a subject at
hand, we have a project for you: ;-)
*Write an OCaml web interface for the demexp software*
Demexp is an electronic voting software designed for direct democracy
with special features (Condorcet voting algorithm, vote delegation,
vote change at any time, ...). More information at <https://demexp.org/>
I personally hope that one day people are going to come to OCaml
because of demexp. :-)
Currently, the demexp software is a client/server application,
entirely written in OCaml. We use LablGTK for the client which is
supported on Windows and Linux. But in order to ease deployment of our
software, we need a web interface that could be accessed through a
regular web browser. We have a very rudimentary prototype of such a
web interface (written with WDialog) but a more elaborate and
maintainable interface is heartily needed.
A first draft of things to implement is given in those messages:
<http://www.mail-archive.com/demexp-dev%40nongnu.org/msg00932.html>
<http://www.mail-archive.com/demexp-dev%40nongnu.org/msg00940.html>
Such an interface could be implemented with a modern OCaml web
framework like Ocsigen. Our software is generally under GNU GPL
license but we can use another one if desired (BSD like for example).
Feel free to ask questions or comments, but preferably on
demexp-dev at mailing list or directly to myself to avoid polluting
caml-list.
========================================================================
2) OS X, main program in C, No bytecode file specified
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
20b8f6a75b75fc17/d73dcb73f7392edd#d73dcb73f7392edd>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** John Whitington asked and EL CHAAR Rabih answered:
> I have a main program in C, and some ocaml code. I usually compile to
> native code using ocamlopt -output-obj and then have XCode compile
the
> C and link the whole together. This works well.
>
> However, due to a bug which prevents my using natively compiled
code at
> the moment, I'm trying to replicate the situation with bytecode.
>
> So now, I use ocamlc -output-obj, and link camlrun instead of asmrun.
>
> This compiles and links but, when run, gives "No bytecode file
specified".
>
> The executable is not being stripped. I'm using Ocaml 3.09.3 on
> OSX 10.4/ppc.
>
> Can anyone suggest what may be wrong?
What parameters are you passing in you caml_startup call?
I usually do the following
char * argv1[2];
argv1[0]="--";
argv1[1]=NULL;
caml_startup(argv1);
========================================================================
3) OCaml SQLite3 bindings
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
6ddade9286c59622/618d232937ebe975#618d232937ebe975>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Markus Mottl announced:
There is a new version of SQLite3-bindings for OCaml available as a
Godi-package now. The initial version was written by Christian Szegedy
about two years ago, but does not seem to have been maintained since
then.
I have improved the C-stubs to fix a few things and make the library
work
better in multi-threaded environments, cleaned up the API, and
documented
it. The library is not quite backwards compatible to Christian's
version,
but it should take very little effort only to update applications
using it.
Just select the package "godi-sqlite3" in Godi to install the
library. You
can then link with the findlib package "sqlite3", and access the library
through module "Sqlite3".
The source code is available here:
<http://ocaml.info/home/ocaml_sources.html#ocaml-sqlite3>
Best regards,
Markus
P.S.: I haven't managed to get feedback from Christian yet so I don't
know
whether he's fine with my changes, but it is likely that the current API
will remain stable.
========================================================================
4) LSD mount utilities, version 1.3
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
6bded05ff70ae61a/2eff8fd25ab3efbd#2eff8fd25ab3efbd>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** M E Leypold announced:
Release 1.3 of LSD mount utilities with mkfs, fsck and LUKS support
___________________________________________________________________
A new version (1.3) of the LSD mount utilities has been released.
- LUKS support has been tested (by Alexander Ulrich) and seems
to be OK.
- Basic versions of mkfs.lcrypt and fsck.lcrypt have been added:
You can now use mkfs to create a file system on your encrypted
device and fsck to check your file system.
- The file USAGE (see below) is intended to be the beginning of
a user manual.
LSD mount utilities are written in OCaml.
Regards -- M E Leypold, 16 Feb 2007.
* About
=====
The LSD mount utilities assist in setting up (creating) and
mounting of encrypted loopback file systems in Linux 2.4 and 2.6.
They also enable users (not only root) to mount encrypted
file systems if appropriate entries have been added to /etc/fstab.
The LSD mount utilities are licensed/distributed under the the
terms of the GPL Version 2 (no later version). We'll usually be
happy though to relicense under other OS licenses, but you have to
ask and get the licensing change from us in writing.
The LSD mount utilities are available from
<http://software.m-e-leypold.de>. Read the README file from the
distribution before using the software!
* How to get more information and help
====================================
Information on recent development and plans and updated
documentation will be posted at
<http://www.etc-network.de/blog/mel/projects/lsd-mount-utilities>
If you need help, have questions concerning the LSD mount
utilities or have suggestions for further implementation you can
write the developer at
development-2006-8ecbb5cc8a-REMOVE-THIS at AND-THAT-m-e-leypold.de
I don't guarantee support, but will usually do my best to help.
* How to use (excerpt from USAGE)
===============================
PLEASE DO READ the file USAGE in the distribution. The following
excerpt is only intended to give you a basic idea how things work
with LSD mount utilities (i.e. that the hide all losetup and
cryptsetup stuff from the user).
** Creating an encrypted file system
---------------------------------
Before you can make an encrypted file system you need to create an
image file and preferably fill it with random noise:
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/secret/image
Given an image files a encrypted file systems can be initialized
with plain mkfs:
mkfs -t lcrypt /secret/image 10000
The 'blocks' number is optional (you usually can leave it
out). You'll be asked for the passphrase twice.
** Checking an encrypted file system
---------------------------------
An encrypted file system can be checked passing '-t lcrypt' to
fsck.
fsck -t lcrypt /secret/image
You will, of course be asked for the passphrase.
If there is an entry in /etc/fstab (see the next sections) which
already gives the type of /secret/image as lcrypt, the '-t lcrypt'
might be omitted:
fsck /secret/image
** Mounting an encrypted file system
----------------------------------
To mount an encrypted file system you can pass '-t lcrypt' to
mount:
mount -t lcrypt /data/encrypted-image /mnt
You'll be asked for the passphrase.
If there is an entry in /etc/fstab (see the next sections) which
already gives the type of /secret/image as lcrypt, the '-t lcrypt'
and the mount point might be omitted.
mount /data/encrypted-image
** Setting up encrypted file systems in /etc/fstab
-----------------------------------------------
Use lcrypt as file system type. Use the option 'user', if
non-privileged users should be able to mount the device:
/etc/fstab:
|
...
|
| /data/encrypted-image /secret-mnt lcrypt
rw,noauto,user,exec 0 0
|
** Loclean: Clean up loopback devices
----------------------------------
Loclean can only be used by root:
loclean
and will try to remove all associations with files from loopback
devices (/dev/loop*) that are not currently in use.
========================================================================
Using folding to read the cwn in vim 6+
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a quick trick to help you read this CWN if you are viewing it
using
vim (version 6 or greater).
:set foldmethod=expr
:set foldexpr=getline(v:lnum)=~'^=\\{78}$'?'<1':1
zM
If you know of a better way, please let me know.
========================================================================
Old cwn
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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========================================================================
--
Alan Schmitt <http://alan.petitepomme.net/>
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
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