CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ocamlresolveopam
sangwoo-joh
sangwoo-joh

Reputation: 127

Opam switch install could not install the older version of ocaml (3.08.3)

I'm doing some works with ocaml and opam. I need ocaml of version 3.08.3, so I tried install this version via opam. opam switch install 3.08.3 The above command would install it successfully, I hoped. But it couldn't. opam-switch could not install 3.* versions of ocaml with the following error message. [ERROR] Could not resolve set of base packages I searched this message everywhere, but I couldn't get any of hints. Does anyeone have a clue to solve this problem? Thanks.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 588

Answers (1)

camlspotter
camlspotter

Reputation: 9030

compilers/3.08.3/3.08.3/3.08.3.comp, the file to describe the base packages for that compiler version tells:

packages: [
  "base-unix"
  "base-bigarray"
  "base-threads"
  "base-ocamlbuild"
]

So it requires base-unix, base-bigarray, base-threads and base-ocamlbuild. However, the package description of base-ocamlbuild, packages/base-ocamlbuild/base-ocamlbuild.base/opam says:

ocaml-version: [>= "3.10" & < "4.03"]

It says that ocamlbuild is not available before 3.10. Indeed, ocamlbuild was introduced since 3.10. It is likely that the compiler description file 3.08.3.comp has a bug. It is great if you would raise a bug ticket at https://github.com/ocaml/opam-repository/issues for the fix.

For a workaround, I recommend to install OCaml 3.08 by hand, not using OPAM command: I see almost no benefit to use OPAM with 3.08 where ocamlbuild is not available, since most of the OPAM packages assume the existence of ocamlbuild.

You could also create your own copy of OPAM repo with a fixed 3.08.3.comp file without "base-ocamlbuild". See the document of opam repo for more details.

Upvotes: 3

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