OCaml Weekly News

Probably worth sharing here:

• gdb.py
• gdb_ocamlrun.py
• lldb.py
• Getting Started with GDB on OCaml

For those who (like me) have always been perplexed when they try to use ocamldebug, b/c it just doesn't seem to work like gdb or perl's debugger, or any other debugger I've tried, this video was immensely helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGvJk14sfi8&t=724s

Specifically, I learned that at the beginning of the program, to set a breakpoint in the main program file, I need to do something like (for a file "extract_environments.ml", and line 79):

break @extract_environments 79

That was blocking me FOREVER, b/c holy cow there's a ton of initialization, and I just didn't know how to run thru all that and get to the first meaningful line of my main program.

Now I do. I can move forward from here with ocamldebug. Finally!

I'm using this linter for teaching for two years, and I'm very happy that I implemented it. Student's code is much less annoying to read :slight_smile:

I'm happy to announce the 0.24 release of qcheck, qcheck-core, qcheck-alcotest, and qcheck-ounit, along with a 0.6 release of ppx_deriving_qcheck :tada:

QCheck is a library for randomized property-based testing, inspired by Haskell's seminal QuickCheck library. The 0.24 release contains a range of improvements to the integrated shrinking of QCheck2, initially introduced in the 0.18 release. As a consequence, its shrinking algorithms should act more predictably, reduce faster, and report smaller counterexamples. In essence, the 0.24 release is what we hoped 0.18 would be. The release also adds missing result, int32, and int64 combinators, as well as more documentation.

If you've previously given QCheck2's integrated shrinking a spin, I encourage you to try it again with the patched 0.24 release. For new users, the 0.24 release is also a good candidate to check out! :smiley: Please share any problems you encounter on the qcheck repo: https://github.com/c-cube/qcheck

Full change log:

• [qcheck-alcotest] Add an optional speed_level parameter to to_alcotest
• Adjust the QCheck2.Gen.list shrinker to produce minimal counterexamples at size 3 too
• Replace the QCheck2 OCaml 4 Random.State.split hack with a faster one
• Improve the QCheck2.Gen.list shrinker heuristic and utilize the improved shrinker in other QCheck2 {list,array,bytes,string,function}* shrinkers
• Use split and copy in Random.State underlying QCheck2 to avoid non-deterministic shrinking behaviour
• Add missing documentation strings for QCheck.{Print,Iter,Shrink,Gen} and QCheck2.Gen.
• Add result combinators to QCheck, QCheck.{Gen,Print,Shrink,Observable}, and QCheck2.{Gen,Print,Observable}.
• Add missing combinators QCheck{,2}.Print.int{32,64}, QCheck.Gen.int{32,64}, QCheck{,2}.Observable.int{32,64}, and deprecate QCheck.Gen.{ui32,ui64}
• Document dune usage in README

Happy testing! :smiley: :keyboard:

Dear all,

I’m happy to announce a new version of Bogue, version 20250224, now availble on opam.

The main novelty is a brand new File dialog. It will open a new window (or popup) which will let the user navigate the file system and select one or more files or directories.

This corresponds to the new File module.

You might also be interested in the Monitor submodule, which implements a file monitoring API based on fswatch (if available) or Unix.stat.

If you are curious, here is a graphical summary of the current functionalities of Bogue's file dialog (I hope that more will be added soon; I'm open to suggestions)

PS: @Sachindra_Ragul, yes we did it finally ;) better late than never

Dear everyone,

sorry for the silence – the phase 3 of the opam repository archival (taking the x-maintenance-intent into account) has to be delayed by (tentatively) one month. The reason is that our tooling is not ready - the task, given an opam repository and maintenance-intent on packages, which can be safely archived, is harder than it seems:

• we've to take compiler versions into account
• there may be a package X in version 1 and 2, both supporting OCaml 4.08, but depend on package Y (where X.1 depends on Y >= 1, and X.2 depends on Y >= 2) – now Y.1 could support OCaml 4.08, and Y.2 only OCaml 4.12 – so it is not safe to archive X.1 (since on OCaml 4.08 there won't be any X installable). And this may be deeply nested in the dependency chain

It is useful if you mark your packages with x-maintenance-intent (as mentioned in https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/opam-repository-archive-clarification-of-the-opam-fields).

We'll let you know once we have tooling in place to cope with the task described above (development is happening here: https://github.com/hannesm/maintenance-intent-filter).

If you are a user of cmdliner note that cmdliner 2.0 – in exchange for auto-completion support – will remove the ability to specify command and options names by unambiguous prefixes according to this plan of action.

If you are horrified by it please chime in on the issue.

Hello, we are conducting a short survey to better understand how you use the different editor plugins available for OCaml. Please take a few minutes (ideally 5) to fill out the form.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfGGFZBiw4PF7L0yt2DBX8443G5_7aFL5v6wvo6p5MwL-DW8Q/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.454013858=Discuss

Thank you :) :camel:

Hi everyone :camel:

The next Dune Dev Meeting will be on Wednesday, March, 5th at 9:00 CET. This is going to be a one-hour-long meeting.

Whether you are a maintainer, a regular contributor, a new joiner or just curious, you are welcome to join: these discussions are opened! The goal of these meetings is to provide a place to discuss the ongoing work together and synchronize with the Dune developers :smile:

The agenda is available on the meeting dedicated page. Feel free to add more items in it.

• Meeting link: zoom
• Calendar event: google calendar
• Wiki with informations and previous notes: dune wiki on github

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the OCaml Platform newsletter!

In this September-December 2024 edition, we are excited to bring you the latest on the OCaml Platform, continuing our tradition of highlighting recent developments as seen in previous editions. To understand the direction we're headed, especially regarding development workflows and user experience improvements, check out our roadmap.

Highlights:

• Dune Enables Cache By Default, Adds WebAssembly Support The latest Dune releases mark significant progress in build performance and language support. Version 3.17.0 enables the Dune cache by default for known-safe operations, improving build times for common tasks. The addition of Wasm_of_ocaml support opens new possibilities for OCaml projects targeting the web or other WebAssembly runtimes. In addition, Dune now supports adding Codeberg and GitLab repositories via the (source) stanza.
• opam 2.3.0 As announced with opam 2.2, opam releases are now time-based with a cadence of 6 months. Opam 2.3 has been released last November. It contains a major breaking change regarding extra-files handling: extra-files are now ignored when they are not present in the opam file. Previously they were silently added. This release adds also some new commands like opam list --latest-only or opam install foo --verbose-on bar, among other fixes and enhancements.
• Improved Editor Workflows with OCaml-LSP and Merlin A major milestone for project-wide features has been reached with the release of OCaml 5.3: LSP's renaming feature now renames symbols in the entire project if the index is built. Additionally,all of the classic merlin-server commands are now available as LSP custom requests: this enabled the addition of many new features to the Visual Studio Code plugin. Finally a brand new Emacs mode, based on LSP and the new custom queries is now available on Melpa.
• Performance and Security Enhancements Recent updates across the platform focus on performance and reliability. Dune optimized its handling of .cmxs files, while opam implemented stricter git submodule error checking. OCaml-LSP resolved file descriptor leaks, contributing to a more stable development environment.

Feature Guides & Announcements:

• Installing Developer Tools with Dune
• Shell Completions in Dune Developer Preview
• OCaml Infrastructure: Enhancing Platform Support and User Experience
• Call for Feedback

Releases:

• OCaml-LSP 1.20.1
• opam-publish 2.5.0
• Merlin 5.3-502 for OCaml 5.2 and 4.18-414 for OCaml 4.14
• Dune 3.17.1
• OCamlformat 0.27.0
• Dune 3.17.0
• opam 2.3.0
• Dune 3.16.1
• Merlin 5.2.1-502 for OCaml 5.2 and 4.17.1 for OCaml 5.1 and 4.14

Here are links from many OCaml blogs aggregated at the ocaml.org blog.

• Full blown productivity in VSCode with OCaml