How should I organise my OCaml project?

Question

I know this question is quite general and I even don't know how to better ask.

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I don't have much experiences in C and I just wish I can do similar thing in OCaml as in Java.

For example, in Java, I normally create a project (using Eclipse or other IDE), then I have a src folder and a bin folder. All compiled stuff go to bin.

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So for the starter, how could I do something as simple as above? just split the source files and compile files easily?

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Normally, how do you guys organise OCaml project files?

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The final question is that should I use mli or module? I noticed that ocaml-batteries-included is using mli a lot.

Answer 1

There's plenty of differing opinion about this subject in the OCaml community and it really depends on how structure or flexibility do you want. Myself I use a makefile and ocamlbuild if I'm being lazy and oasis for everything else. You should check out a few random OCaml projects to see how it works and what you would like. For example an oasis project might look like so: https://github.com/avsm/ocaml-github. You only need to look at the _oasis file (think of it like pom.xml if you ever used maven). Running oasis setup should generate all of the build files for you. ocaml setup.ml -all followed by ocaml setup.ml -install would install the library on your system.

As for using mli's. There's a tiny bit of controversy regarding them. Here's a discussion from the mailing lists: http://www.mentby.com/Group/caml-list/why-should-i-use-mli-files.html

My own opinion is that they are optional unless your modules are part of a public API that others will use. In which case they are mandatory.