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smlsmlnj

How to compile and execute a stand-alone SML-NJ executable

I have seen one other answer link but what I don't understand is what is basis.cm and what's it's use?

Solution

  • You are asking two questions.

    What is basis.cm and what's it's use?

    This is the Basis library. It allows the use of built-in functions.

    How to compile and execute a stand-alone SML-NJ executable

    Assuming you followed Jesper Reenberg's tutorial on how to execute a heap image, the next thing you need in order to have SML/NJ produce a stand-alone executable is to convert this heap image. One should hypothetically be able to do this using heap2exec, a tool that takes the heap image, e.g. the .x86-linux file generated on my system, and generates an .asm file that can be assembled and linked.

    Unfortunately, this tool is not very well-maintained, so you have to

    1. Go to the smlnj.org page and fix the download-link by removing 'www.' (this page and the SourceForge page don't contain the same explanations or assumptions about argument count, and neither page's download link work).
    2. Download and extract this tool, and fix the 'build' script so it points to your ml-build tool
    3. Fix the tool's argument use by changing [inf, outf] to [_, inf, outf]
    4. Run ./build which generates 'heap2asm.x86-linux' on my system

    5. For example, in order to generate an .asm file for the heap2asm program itself, run

      sml @SMLload heap2asm.x86-linux heap2asm.x86-linux heap2asm.s

    6. At this point, I have unfortunately been unable to produce an executable that works. E.g. if you run gcc -c heap2asm.s and ld heap2asm.o, you get a warning of a missing _start label. The resulting executable segfaults even if you rename the existing _sml_heap_image label to _start. That is, it seems that a piece of entry code that the runtime environment normally delivers is missing here.

    7. At this point, discard SML/NJ and use MLton for producing stand-alone binaries.