[Caml-list] Modules

[Wouter Swierstra]

Dear all,

I've been learning OCaml, coming from a Haskell background. While I'm
familiar with functional programming, I am occasionally puzzled by
errors relating to the module system. I was wondering if there was a
comprehensive overview/tutorial of OCaml's module system. I couldn't
find anything on the OCaml Hump - but perhaps someone on this list
might know a good reference.

Thanks in advance,

Wouter

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[Pierre-Evariste Dagand]

Hi Wouter,

> While I'm familiar with functional programming, I am occasionally puzzled by
> errors relating to the module system.

That's normal, everyone does, at some point. Especially when you start
having Parameterized Modules (called Functors in ML) all over the
place.

> I was wondering if there was a
> comprehensive overview/tutorial of OCaml's module system.

For a comprehensive source of information, there is the OCaml manual:

http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual004.html

For a tutorial on modules, I would recommend Chapter 14 of "Developing
Applications With Objective Caml":

http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html

Hope this helps,

--
Pierre-Evariste DAGAND
http://perso.eleves.bretagne.ens-cachan.fr/~dagand/

[blue storm]

I'd also add :
- the "formal" part of the manual (Part II) description of module
types : http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual018.html . In
particular the "Type specifications" section is quite informative
imho.
- the module-related chapter of the "UUU book" :
http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/u3-ocaml/ocaml-modules.html

If you're interested in theory, you can find an introduction to the ML
Module system theory in the Pierce's book "Advanced topic in Types and
Programming Languages" [1], and a some more advanced papers in the "A
Few Paper On Caml" section of this website :
http://caml.inria.fr/about/papers.en.html

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=A5ic1MPTvVsC&pg=PA293&dq=pierce+module+ML#v=onepage&q=pierce%20module%20ML&f=false