How to install smlnj in arch linux?

Question

Earlier I was in Ubuntu & it was easy to install smlnj using apt-get install smlnj but now I shifted to Arch & I'm finding it difficult to install smlnj.

I tried to find smlnj package through yaourt but I didn't found any. Then I tried to install it by steps given in official site by downloading tar file. I followed given steps and extracted tar file in /usr/local/sml & then compiled by running command config/install.sh.

After doing all this I tried to run sml but was not successful. I tried setting environment variable but again was not successful.

Please tell me whether I'm missing any steps or doing it wrong way. What is correct way to install smlnj in Arch Linux?

Answer 1

Update: As Alexander (xyproto) points out, pacman -S smlnj should work again now that SML/NJ is in the [multilib] repository. The solution below would still work, but credit for making installation more convenient should go to him. :-)

Before: It seems that the package became unavailable for x86_64 in Feb 2017, but it doesn't look like it should have happened. I've asked Alexander who maintains the package in [community].

The AUR doesn't contain an smlnj package because it's against AUR policy to overlap with official packages, unless the AUR package is compiled with some tweak that is clearly visible in the package name.

You can still build an Arch package and install that by finding the PKGBUILD and accompanying files at: https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/community.git/tree/trunk?h=packages/smlnj (or by cloning the git repo below with those four files in it):

~ $ git clone https://github.com/sshine/smlnj-arch.git
~ $ cd smlnj-arch
~/smlnj-arch $ makepkg
~/smlnj-arch $ sudo pacman -U smlnj-110.80-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz