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Deprecating "libraries" in opam files
The "libraries" field is supported but does not seem that anything in the ecosystem is using it:
https://github.com/ocaml/opam/blob/4d9db690420e36d995e6a0afe18660bcb45bea49/src/format/opamFile.mli#L460-L461
Might be worth deprecating it in 2.1 or 2.2.
The plan here:
- Double-check the lack of use and add an
opam lintwarning (all versions) - When the opam file format itself is updated, remove the field
The lint warning forms the "deprecation" stage, since this field has no interpretation at present.
I think that was a planned feature in 1.0 (when it was not clear if ocamlfind would be replaced) but never got any use; it was already deprecated in 2.0 and I think we can remove it altogether since it has always been absent from the manual. After double-checking that it's absent from opam-repo of course.
The exact same is probably true for the syntax: field as well ?
maybe we don’t want to remove that. See https://github.com/ocaml/dune/issues/8650
In practice for that purpose it’s the same as having an x-* field but maybe we want to use it instead so we can have a feature to install a library like opam install --lib findlib to install ocamlfind