How can I call OCaml functions from a Python program?

Question

I've got a large legacy program that is written in OCaml, and I'd like to be able to call some OCaml functions from my Python program.

How can I do this the easiest way?

Answer 1

Directly, no. However, if you create a C API for your Ocaml library, you can call that API via. Python's ctypes module or similar. Likewise, if you expose a network service for your OCaml application, Python can call into that.

Answer 2

You might find useful Pycaml, a Python-OCaml interface allowing to call OCaml functions from Python and vice versa.

Be sure to look for the 2011 or later version, which is based on a 2002 version.

Answer 3

Pycaml is no more maintained: nowadays there is pyml and lymp to do that.

pyml: http://pyml.gforge.inria.fr lymp: https://github.com/dbousque/lymp

Both of them are available in opam (opam install pyml lymp). I have not tried them yet, but since I know the author of pyml is very competent, I would bet on that one.