3.4. Providing META files

The ocaml-findlib provides a tool (named ocamlfind) to handle OCaml libraries and store information about libraries dependencies, compiler flags, linking options, etc. Meta informations regarding a library are contained in files (usually one for each library), named META files, contained in the library directory. The distribution of META files is the best way to make more easy to use the Debian-specific oragnization of libraries. Packages distributing META files should suggest the use of ocamlfind, that is have a Suggest: ocaml-findlib.

By default, ocamlfind will look for META in this order:

The naming scheme of META is pretty simple.

For example, the META file for the lablgtk library is named META and has path /usr/lib/ocaml/3.10.2/lablgtk/META, where /usr/lib/ocaml/3.10.2 is the main OCaml installation directory and lablgtk is the lablgtk library directory.

If upstream doesn't provide a META, packagers are encouraged to create one. In this case, the META should be sent to upstream authors, in order to have it included in the next version of the upstream source. For more information about META files, have a look at the Findlib manual, at the several META files provided by other packages (e.g. lablgtk, pxp, pcre, netstring, lablgl, ...) or ask on the debian-ocaml-maint mailing list for help.