[MLton] Re: Has anyone run MLton code on ARM?

[Matthew Fluet]

Ryan Newton wrote:
> I'm using MLton as a backend/optimizer for a domain specific language 
> for stream-processing sensor network programs.  

Cool.  If you have a webpage/publications, please consider adding it to
   http://mlton.org/Users

 > I was wondering if
> anyone has in any way run MLton code on an ARM architecture?

I don't see why cross-compiling to an ARM platform should be 
significantly harder than cross-compiling to any another platform.
See
   http://mlton.org/CrossCompiling
for more details about installing and using MLton as a cross-compiler.

It really depends on whether the target platform provides a sufficiently 
POSIX-like environment.  If you are targeting an arm-linux platform, I 
would imagine that you would be o.k.

> My googling tells me the answer is no.  That both the bytecode and 
> C-code generated depend on a very platform specific runtime (1).  
 >
 > (1) This message from 2004 addresses the issue
 >
 > http://osdir.com/ml/lang.ml.mlton.devel/2004-10/msg00082.html

That message was asking whether there was a completely portable 
distribution of MLton.  That isn't possible, but most people haven't 
found it too difficult to cross-compile.

> However, I thought I'd check if there were any recent, obscure successes 
> in this area.  For example, Matthew, I know you have worked on a C-- 
> codegen.  I wonder if anyone has a C-- ARM backend...?

I don't know about a C-- ARM backend.  And, in any case, such a backend 
would still be platform dependent.