package mel

Melange

Melange compiles OCaml / Reason to JavaScript

Powered by the versatile OCaml type system, with best-in-class type inference, Melange produces robust JavaScript code.

• Melange

  • Installation

    • OPAM
    • Esy
    • Nix
    • OCaml version compatibility

  • Editor integration

    • OPAM
    • Esy
    • Pass --fallback-read-dot-merlin to ocaml-lsp
  • Community

  • FAQ

    • How does this project relate to other tools?
    • Can I use ReScript syntax?
  • Contributing
  • Acknowledgments
  • Licensing

Installation

Melange is released to OPAM. You can obtain it in multiple ways:

OPAM

$ opam install mel

Template

melange-re/melange-opam-template provides a GitHub template repository that can be used as a project starter.

Note: mel build builds a Melange project. Before running the resulting JavaScript, the Melange runtime library needs to be present in node_modules so that it can be found by JavaScript based tooling:

ln -sfn $(opam var prefix)/lib/melange/runtime node_modules/melange

Manual setup

After installing Melange, you should now be able to run mel from your switch:

$ opam exec -- mel --help

Esy

Get Esy on NPM:

• npm install -g esy installs Esy globally
• if npm is installed, npx esy can be used to run Esy locally

An Esy project starter also exists to get started quickly with Esy.

Once the repository has been cloned, run esy in the project root.

Nix

Melange has good support for Nix:

• nix run github:melange-re/melange#mel -- --help runs melange.
• nix shell github:melange-re/melange#mel -c $SHELL enters a shell with mel and melc in $PATH. Try out mel --help for available options.
• github:melange-re/melange can be added as a flake input

OCaml version compatibility

The current Melange distribution targets OCaml 4.14. There's an old version of Melange based on OCaml 4.12 that requires version 4.12.0+mel of melange-compiler-libs.

Editor integration

• Until Melange has first-class support in Dune, editor integration is based on a .merlin file workflow.

  • Melange generates .merlin files automatically as part of the build
• ocaml-lsp based Language Server Protocol support needs to be configured as follows:

OPAM

Install ocaml-lsp and dot-merlin-reader:

$ opam install ocaml-lsp dot-merlin-reader

Esy

Add the following to esy.json:

// esy.json
{
  "devDependencies": {
    "@opam/ocaml-lsp-server": ">= 1.12.0",
    "@opam/dot-merlin-reader": "*"
  }
}

Pass --fallback-read-dot-merlin to ocaml-lsp

ocaml-lsp requires the --fallback-read-dot-merlin flag to look for .merlin files.

VSCode

• Install the VSCode OCaml Platform extension
• Select the "Custom" sandbox option and provide the flag to ocaml-lsp via the following command template:

// .vscode/settings.json
{
  "ocaml.sandbox": {
    "kind": "custom",
    "template": "esy $prog $args --fallback-read-dot-merlin"
  }
}

Community

• There's a #melange channel in the ReasonML Discord

FAQ

How does this project relate to other tools?

This project is forked from the ReScript compiler, focused on a deeper integration with the OCaml ecosystem. This allows sharing code between backend and frontend using Dune's virtual libraries.

Melange also introduces a ReScript compatibility layer to maintain compatibility with ReScript syntax - preserving access to ReScript's package ecosystem.

A small write-up with more details on the motivation behind this project can be found in the announcement blog post.

Below is a quick comparison between Melange and other tools:

Can I use ReScript syntax?

Yes! ReScript syntax is supported, but ReScript won't have as many features as the OCaml or Reason syntaxes due to ReScript being built on top of an old OCaml version (4.06 - released in 2018). (e.g. letop binding operators, generalized module open expressions, or local substitutions in signatures).

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Acknowledgments

• Thanks to the ReScript project, its author and maintainer @bobzhang, and its many contributors. Melange is a fork of ReScript, and continues to incorporate patches to ReScript on a regular basis.
• Thanks to the OCaml team, obviously, without such a beautiful yet practical language, this project would not exist.
• Thanks to Bloomberg and Facebook. The ReScript project began at Bloomberg and was published in 2016; without the support of Bloomberg, it would not have happened. ReScript was funded by Facebook since July 2017.

See also Credits.md concerning some individual components of Melange.

Licensing

See COPYING and COPYING.LESSER

See Credits for more details.