[Caml-list] utop execution of multiple OCaml files

[Caml-list] utop execution of multiple OCaml files

[Kenichi Asai]

Suppose I have a.ml that uses definitions in b.ml (and possibly more).
To compile these files, all I need to do is to prepare a dune file
that mentions only the main file: (executable (name a)), and type
"dune build".

But before I compile the whole program, I often want to play with
functions in a.ml using OCaml toplevel, like utop.  If b.ml were
registered as a library, I could do it by "dune utop ." and then "#use
a.ml".  But to do so, I need to create a directory for the library and
create another dune file for it.

Is there a way to load all the modules into utop, just as simple as
typing "dune build" for the compilation case?

Perhaps, there is a tool to analyze the dependency and produce a list
of commands like the following?

#mod_use "b.ml";;
#mod_use "a.ml";;

-- 
Kenichi Asai

Re: [Caml-list] utop execution of multiple OCaml files

[Kate]

I'm not exactly sure if there is an easy way to do this for you but

#use_output "your command";;

in the default ocaml toplevel (i'm not sure that exists in utop) should 
be useful. The command can be any shell command.
For example "dune top" will output the right #directory and #load, but 
this only works for libraries the same way "dune utop" does.

So maybe something like:

#use_output "dune top";;
#use_output "for f in src/*.ml; do echo \"#mod_use \\\"$f\\\";\";done";;

The first "dune top" will load any dependencies you may have and the 
shell command will load all of the ml files from src.

I hope this helps,
Kate

On 8/15/25 01:50, Kenichi Asai wrote:
> Suppose I have a.ml that uses definitions in b.ml (and possibly more).
> To compile these files, all I need to do is to prepare a dune file
> that mentions only the main file: (executable (name a)), and type
> "dune build".
> 
> But before I compile the whole program, I often want to play with
> functions in a.ml using OCaml toplevel, like utop.  If b.ml were
> registered as a library, I could do it by "dune utop ." and then "#use
> a.ml".  But to do so, I need to create a directory for the library and
> create another dune file for it.
> 
> Is there a way to load all the modules into utop, just as simple as
> typing "dune build" for the compilation case?
> 
> Perhaps, there is a tool to analyze the dependency and produce a list
> of commands like the following?
> 
> #mod_use "b.ml";;
> #mod_use "a.ml";;
>