Get the Alba Compiler
The compiler is written in OCaml and needs an installation of the ocaml
compiler better than version 4.03.0. Furthermore it needs the builder
ocamlbuild, the parser generator menhir and the ocaml finder ocamlfind.
It is best to install the ocaml package manager and the compiler. Both are available for a lot of platforms and operating systems. Instructions on how to do the installation can be found on http://ocaml.org.
Having the ocaml package manager and the ocaml compiler you can issue the commands
opam install alba
This command installs the Alba compiler and the base library within the corresponding opam directories.
The command
alba
should show a short help text on how to use the compiler.
Use the Alba Compiler
The Albatross compiler compiles packages or more exactly modules within a
package. A package is a directory containing Albatross source files of the
form <name>.al and <name>.ali.
In order to compile a package it first has to be initialized by issueing the command
alba init
within the directory of your source files.
The command
alba status
shows which files need compilation or recompilation. The compiler has an automatic dependency management and compiles only packages which need compilation or recompilation.
The command
alba compile <module-name>
compiles the module name and all modules which are used by the module name
and need compilation or recompilation. Note that the module has to be named
without the extension *.al or *.ali.
The command
alba compile
compiles the whole package i.e. all modules of the package which need compilation or recompilation.
In order to force recompilation even if not need you can issue the command
alba compile -force <module-name>
If the Albatross compiler has been installed via opam then the base library
has been installed as well and the Albatross compiler is able to find it. In
case that you have written 2 or more packages and one of the package uses not
only the base library but also some of your own packages, you have to tell the
compiler where to find the used packages.
The command
alba compile -I <path1> -I <path2> ... <module-name>
compiles the module name and searches for used packages in the paths
path1, path2, ...
You can set the search paths for packgages by setting the environment variable
ALBA_LIBRARY_PATH. E.g. in the bash shell you can type
export ALBA_LIBRARY_PATH=<path1>:<path2>:<path3>
to instruct the compiler to search for libraries in the corresponding paths.
If you want to compile a package residing in a different directory than the
current directory you can indicate this to the compiler via the option
-work-dir.
alba compile -work-dir <path-to-source> <module-name>
The command
alba help <command>
gives a short description on how the use the command command e.g. use alba
help compile to show the options and arguments for the compile command.