Library
Module
Module type
Parameter
Class
Class type
The module type for an embedded domain specific language (eDSL) that describes a Dune file.
The rule [rule_clause1 ...]
stanza is used to create custom user rules. It tells Dune how to generate a specific set of files from a specific set of dependencies.
The executable [name "<name>"; ...]
stanza must be used to describe an executable.
"<name>"
is a module name that contains the executable's main entry point. There can be additional modules in the current directory; you only need to specify the entry point. Given an executable stanza with name "<name>"; ...
, Dune will know how to build "<name>.exe"
. If requested, it will also know how to build "<name>.bc"
and "<name>.bc.js"
. Dune 2.0 and up also need specific configuration (see the modes
optional field below).
The library [name "<library-name>"; ...]
stanza must be used to describe OCaml libraries.
"<library-name>"
is the real name of the library. It determines the names of the archive files generated for the library as well as the module name under which the library will be available, unless wrapped false
is used (see wrapped
). It must be a valid OCaml module name, but it doesn't need to start with an uppercase letter.
install
copies freshly built artifacts from the workspace to the system.
The install stanza takes three pieces of information:
section
in which the files will be installedSee Install for how to specify the three pieces of information.
pragma instruction stanza
gives an instruction
to the interpreter that modifies the behavior of a Dune stanza
.
The standard pragmas are:
"once"
- Use this for the dkml-dune-dsl-show interpreter, and any other compliant interpreter, to indicate that the stanza
should be included at most once. Often you will have common build rules that should not be include multiple times simply because you have multiple parameter sets.For the dkml-dune-dsl-show interpreter, a tell-tale sign that you should use "once"
is when your rules do not have any parameters "{{ }}"
in them.
val alias : string -> [ `RuleClause ] repr
alias name
specifies the rule’s alias is name
. Building the alias name
means building the targets of this rule and all other rules that share the name
.
val targets : [< `S of string | `Split of string ] list -> [ `RuleClause ] repr
targets filenames
is a list of filenames
that will be produced by the rule.
val target : string -> [ `RuleClause ] repr
target filename
is the filename
that will be produced by the rule.
deps [dep1; ...]
declares dependencies [dep1; ...]
required by the rule.
See Dependencies for which dependencies are allowed.
action <action>
is what you run to produce the targets from the dependencies.
rule_enabled_if boolean
enables the rule if and only if the boolean
evaluates to the string "false"
.
mode mode
can change the default (Standard
) behavior when a source file exists with the same name as the rule target
.
Standard
- the standard mode.Fallback
- in this mode, when the targets are already present in the source tree, Dune will ignore the rule. It's an error if only a subset of the targets are present in the tree. Fallback rules are commonly used to generate default configuration files that may be generated by a configure script.Promote
- in this mode, the files in the source tree will be ignored. Once the rule has been executed, the targets will be copied back to the source tree.The Boolean language allows the user to define simple Boolean expressions that Dune can evaluate.
After an expression is evaluated, it must be exactly the string true or false to be considered as a Boolean. Any other value will be treated as an error.
The mapping between the raw Dune expressions and the DSL (OCaml) is:
* template
is a string template, like "%{ocaml-config:system}"
* not
is the
val template : string -> [ `BooleanLanguage ] repr
string template like "%{ocaml-config:system}"
or a constant like "macos"
All of the booleans must be true; equivalently, all the booleans are AND-ed together.
At least one of the booleans must be true; equivalently, all the booleans are OR-ed together.
Not equals
Less than
Greater than
Less than or equal to
Greater than or equal to
val glob_files : string -> [ `Dep ] repr
glob_files glob
depends on all files matched by glob
.
You can use globs to declare dependencies on a set of files. Note that globs will match files that exist in the source tree as well as buildable targets, so for instance you can depend on "*.cmi"
.
The glob syntax is interpreted as follows:
"\\<char>"
matches exactly "<char>"
, even if it’s a special character ("*"
, "?"
, ...)."*"
matches any sequence of characters, except if it comes first, in which case it matches any character that is not . followed by anything."**"
matches any character that is not . followed by anything, except if it comes first, in which case it matches anything."?"
matches any single character."[<set>]"
matches any character that is part of "<set>"
."[!<set>]"
matches any character that is not part of "<set>"
."{<glob1>,<glob2>,...,<globn>}"
matches any string that is matched by one of "<glob1>"
, "<glob2>"
, etc.val named_dep : name:string -> string -> [ `Dep ] repr
val alias_dep : string -> [ `Dep ] repr
alias_dep alias
depends on the alias named alias
.
val file_dep : string -> [ `Dep ] repr
file_dep file
depends on the file named file
.
val file_deps : [< `S of string | `Split of string ] list -> [ `Dep ] repr
file_deps [`S file1; `S file2; ...]
depends on the list of files file1; file2; ...
.
val echo : string list -> [ `Action ] repr
echo [s1; s2; ...]
writes the strings s1; s2; ...
to the standard output separated by a space.
with_stdin_from filename action
redirects the input of action action
from the file named filename
.
with_stdout_to filename action
redirects the output of action action
to the file named filename
.
progn [action1; action2; ...]
executes several actions action1; ...
in sequence
val copy : src:string -> dest:string -> [ `Action ] repr
copy ~src ~dest
copies the src
file to dest
val run : [< `S of string | `Split of string ] list -> [ `Action ] repr
run [`S prog; `S arg1; `S arg2; ...]
runs the program prog
and gives it arguments arg1; arg2; ...
.
val diff : actual:string -> expected:string -> [ `Action ] repr
diff ~actual ~expected
is similar to run ["diff"; "<actual>"; "<expected>"]
but is better and allows promotion. See Diffing and promotion for more details.
val diff_q : actual:string -> expected:string -> [ `Action ] repr
diff_q ~actual ~expected
is the "diff?"
action in a "dune" file, and is similar to run ["diff"; "<actual>"; "<expected>"]
except that "<expected>"
should be produced by a part of the same action rather than be a dependency, is optional and will be consumed by diff_q
. See Diffing and promotion for more details.
setenv ~name ~value action
sets the environment variable name
to value
in the action action
This section has expressions that work in both executable
and library
stanzas.
val public_name : string -> [< `Executable | `Library ] repr
public_name
is the name under which the library can be referred as a dependency when it is installed outside of the current workspace, or is the name of the executable when it is installed outside of the current workspace.
public_name
for Libraries
Without a (public_name ...)
field the library won’t be installed by Dune. The public name must start with the package name it’s part of and optionally followed by a dot, then anything else you want.
public_name
for Executables
Without a (public_name ...)
field the executable won’t be installed by Dune.
val name : string -> [< `Executable | `Library ] repr
name
is the module name that contains the executable’s main entry point, or the real name of the library.
name
for Libraries
It determines the names of the archive files generated for the library as well as the module name under which the library will be available, unless (wrapped false)
is used (see wrapped
). It must be a valid OCaml module name, but it doesn’t need to start with an uppercase letter.
name
for Executables
There can be additional modules in the current directory; you only need to specify the entry point. Given an executable
stanza with (name <name>)
, Dune will know how to build "<name>.exe"
.
val libraries :
[< `S of string | `Split of string ] list ->
[< `Executable | `Library ] repr
libraries [`S lib1; `S lib2; ...]
specifies the library's dependencies
modules ordered_set
specifies what modules are part of the library.
By default, Dune will use all the .ml/.re files in the same directory as the dune file. This includes ones present in the file system as well as ones generated by user rules. You can restrict this list by using a modules ordered_set
field. modules
uses the Ordered Sets Language, where elements are module names and don't need to start with an uppercase letter. For instance, to exclude module Foo
, use modules (difference (standard) (set_of ["foo"]))
; in a real Dune file you would write that same expression as "(modules (:standard \ foo))"
See Ordered Sets for the operations you can perform.
type binary_kind =
| C
| Exe
| Object
| Js
| Plugin
binary_kind
is one of:
C
for producing OCaml bytecode embedded in a C fileExe
for normal executablesObject
for producing static object files that can be manually linked into C applicationsShared_object
for producing object files that can be dynamically loaded into an application. This mode can be used to write a plugin in OCaml for a non-OCaml application.Js
for producing JavaScript from bytecode executables, see explicit_js_mode.Plugin
for producing a plugin (.cmxs if native or .cma if bytecode).val modes :
[< `C
| `Exe
| `Object
| `Shared_object
| `Byte
| `Native
| `Js
| `Plugin
| `Byte_complete
| `Mode of compilation_mode * binary_kind ]
list ->
[< `Executable | `Library ] repr
The modes
field allows selecting which linking modes will be used to link executables. Each mode is a pair (<compilation-mode> <binary-kind>), where <compilation-mode> describes whether the bytecode or native code backend of the OCaml compiler should be used and <binary-kind> describes what kind of file should be produced.
Refer to compilation_mode
and binary_kind
for precise semantics.
For instance the following executables stanza will produce bytecode executables and native shared objects:
(executable (name "a") (modes [`Mode (Byte, Exe); `Mode (Native; Shared_object)]))
Additionally, you can use the following shorthands:
Lastly, use the special mode `Byte_complete
for building a bytecode executable as a native self-contained executable, i.e., an executable that doesn't require the ocamlrun program to run and doesn't require the C stubs to be installed as shared object files.
val wrapped : bool -> [< `Executable | `Library ] repr
wrapped false
or wrapped true
specifies whether the library modules should be available only through the top-level library module, or if they should all be exposed at the top level.
The default is wrapped true
, and it's highly recommended to keep it this way. Because OCaml top-level modules must all be unique when linking an executables, polluting the top-level namespace will make your library unusable with other libraries if there is a module name clash. This option is only intended for libraries that manually prefix all their modules by the library name and to ease porting of existing projects to Dune.
preprocess spec
specifies how to preprocess files when needed. The default is no_preprocessing
.
The full list of specifications is in Preprocessing.
val no_preprocessing : [ `PreprocessSpec ] repr
no_preprocessing
tells Dune to give files as-is to the compiler
val pps : [< `S of string | `Split of string ] list -> [ `PreprocessSpec ] repr
pps [`S ppx1; `S ppx2; ...]
preprocesses files using the given list of PPX rewriters
val staged_pps :
[< `S of string | `Split of string ] list ->
[ `PreprocessSpec ] repr
staged_pps [`S ppx1; `S ppx2; ...]
preprocesses files using the given list of PPX rewriters after dependency analysis.
It is slower than pps
, but you must use staged_pps
instead of pps
in order to force Dune to use the following pipeline:
val future_syntax : [ `PreprocessSpec ] repr
future_syntax
is equivalent to no_preprocessing
when using one of the most recent versions of the compiler. When using an older one, it is a shim preprocessor that backports some of the newer syntax elements. This allows you to use some of the new OCaml features while keeping compatibility with older compilers.
For fields that can take multiple arguments, an [`OrderedSet] repr
lets you specify your arguments using set operations. You can:
set_of
split
a string into separate argumentsstandard
argumentsunion
(also known as concatenation) of any other setdifference
between two setsThe authorative reference is Ordered Set Language.
Here are some common sets to get your started:
set_of ["a"; "b"; "c"]
are the set of arguments "a"
, "b"
and "c"
split "a b c"
are the set of arguments "a"
, "b"
and "c"
split "{{#param-sets}} {{{ module }}} {{/param-sets}}"
are the set of arguments after calculating the Mustache expression. The "param-sets"
field of your parameter file will be available if you use the pragma "once" ...
; see pragma
. With the example Mustache expression, Mustache will collect all of the module
fields of your parameter file into a single string, and then split
will split those modules by atoms.(difference (standard) (set_of ["foo"]))
which is all the standard arguments (ex. standard modules) except for "foo"
. In a real Dune file would be written as "(:standard \ foo)"
It is allowed grammatically but is highly discouraged to use split ":standard \ compat"
. Instead use difference (standard) (each ["compat"])
so the meaning is clear and so that DSL interpreters are exposed to what you actually meant to happen.
val set_of : string list -> [ `OrderedSet ] repr
set_of [arg1; arg2; ...]
are zero or more arguments arg1
, arg2
and so on.
val standard : [ `OrderedSet ] repr
standard
are the standard arguments.
The standard depends on the context in which the arguments are applied. See the relevant documentation for the definition of standard
:
val split : string -> [ `OrderedSet ] repr
split "arg1 arg2 ..."
are zero or more arguments arg1
, arg2
and so on after splitting the given string "arg1 arg2 ..."
according to the Lexical conventions of s-expression for identifying atoms in a list.
union [set1; set2; ...]
is all the arguments from set1
and also set2
and so on.
difference a_set b_set
is all the arguments from a_set
that are not in b_set
virtual_modules ordered_set
specifies what modules for which only an interface would be present, and which will have implementations defined in other libraries.
The virtual modules play the role of interfaces or protocols in Dune virtual libraries.
See Ordered Sets for the operations you can perform.
val implements : string -> [ `Library ] repr
implements libname
specifies the virtual library the current library (the implementing library) provides an implementation for.
See Dune virtual libraries for more details.
val default_implementation : string -> [ `Library ] repr
default_implementation default_impl
selects the default implementation for a virtual library, which is enabled after variant resolution if no suitable implementation has been found.
As of this version there are no executable-only clauses.
val section : string -> [ `Install ] repr
section "share"
is the section in which the files will be installed.
The following sections are available:
"lib"
installs by default to "/lib/<pkgname>/"
"lib_root"
installs by default to "/lib/"
"libexec"
installs by default to "/lib/<pkgname>/"
with the executable bit set"libexec_root"
installs by default to "/lib/"
with the executable bit set"bin"
installs by default to "/bin/"
with the executable bit set"sbin"
installs by default to "/sbin/"
with the executable bit set"toplevel"
installs by default to "/lib/toplevel/"
"share"
installs by default to "/share/<pkgname>/"
"share_root"
installs by default to "/share/"
"etc"
installs by default to "/etc/<pkgname>/"
"doc"
installs by default to "/doc/<pkgname>/"
"stublibs"
installs by default to "/lib/stublibs/"
with the executable bit set"man"
installs by default relative to "/man"
with the destination directory extracted from the extension of the source file (so that installing foo.1 is equivalent to a destination of man1/foo.1)"misc"
requires files to specify an absolute destination. It will only work when used with opam and the user will be prompted before the installation when it's done via opam. It is deprecated.The following sections are not yet available in Dune DSL:
"(site (<package> <site>))"
installs in the <site> directory of <package>. If the prefix isn't the same as the one used when installing <package>, <package> won't find the files.val destination_file :
filename:string ->
destination:string ->
[ `InstallDestination ] repr
https://dune.readthedocs.io/en/stable/dune-files.html#install-1.
destination_file ~filename ~destination
represents the sub-expression:
(mylib.el as emacs/site-lisp/mylib.el)
in
(files (mylib.el as emacs/site-lisp/mylib.el))