Write pretty multilevel nested if-then-else code in OCaml?

Question

In OCaml, if I have to write a function using many if-then-else, below is my stupid and ugly solution.

let foo () =
  let a1 = ... in
  if (a1) then
    result1
  else
    let a2 = ... in
    if (a2) then
      result2
    else
      let a3 = ... in
      if (a3) then
        result3
      else
        let a4 = ... in
        if (a4) then
          result4
        else
          result5.

How to beautify the code above? I like C/C++ & Java style which use "return" to save indentation of next if-statement. Can I do the same thing with OCaml?

int foo () = {
  bool a1 = ...;
  if (a1)
    return result1;

  bool a2 = ...;
  if (a2)
    return result2;

  bool a3 = ...;
  if (a3)
    return result3;

  bool a4 = ...;
  if (a4)
    return result4;

  return result5;
}

Answer 1

There is no return statement in OCaml, though you can emulate one with the help of exceptions:

exception Ret of t

let my_ret x = raise (Ret x)

let foo () =
 try
  let a1 = ... in
  if a1 then my_ret result1;
  let a2 = ... in
  if a2 then my_ret result2;
  ...
 with Ret x -> x

Another helpful solution would be to use lazy evaluation:

let foo () =
 let a1 = lazy ...
 and a2 = lazy ...
 and a3 = lazy ...
 in
 match a1, a2, a3 with
 | lazy true, _, _ -> result1
 | _, lazy true, _ -> result2
 | _, _, lazy true -> result3
 | _, _, _ -> result4

This is one of the examples using lazy, there probably are more concise way of expressing your calculation.