Dune: out of directory dependencies

Learning
1

With dune, I see how to specify ‘opam global dependencies’ (i.e. stuff I install via opam install).

I see how to specify dependencies that are “in directory” i.e. sub directory of the dune-project file.

However, how do I specify a location that is out-of-directory, but not a opam package. I.e. I want to specify /home/me/my_repos/ .

I.e. I have ML code/libraries that I want to include that are (1) not part of an opam package and (2) not a subdirectory of dune-project

Thanks!

1 Like
2

You can use opam pin for this.

This is actually a powerful mechanism to divert any package definition, and can even be used to locally create packages that don’t have entries in the repositories.

I use it to work with unpublished packages, local forks of published packages, etc.

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3

We use a lots of git submodules in github.com/ocurrent. For the out of directory project you develop that with git and host it somewhere. Then in the top level project you want to consume it in you have a dune file with

(vendored_dirs
   your_vendored_project
)

and you depend on it in your *.opam file as normal

depends: [ "your_vendored_project" ]

Have a look at GitHub - ocurrent/ocaml-ci: A CI for OCaml projects it has many git submodules/ projects it pulls in.

1 Like
4

I (incorrectly) thought pin was only specifying a version; did not realize you could specify a location, and the location could be local. Thanks!

5

You can simply do either dune install or opam install . in the other project’s directory. It will install that project in your current opam switch (as if it was from a repository). It’s roughly equivalent to what you get with opam pin – there was a discussion about the differences in this forum IIRC.