Exposing modules in library

Learning
1

Hello,

I’ve been developing on OCaml projects for some time now, however, it is my first time writing an OCaml library using dune.

My main issue is that I want my library to expose several modules (in particular, some modules contains functions / functors that can be used by the users, and other modules contains types (and related functions) that should be used to construct parameters for said functions / functors.

What is the best practice for doing this ?
The solution I use is simply to import these modules in the main library file, which will contain

module FirstExposedMod = FirstExposedMod
module SecondExposedMod = SecondExposedMod
module ThirdExposedMod = ThirdExposedMod
module FourthExposedMod = FourthExposedMod

Is it the best way of doing things ? I haven’t been able to find informations on that anywhere.

Thank you very much !

1 Like
2

Hi @giltho,

If you want to expose all of the modules of your library, then you can simply skip writing a main library file, and dune will simply expose all the modules.

If you want to hide a few of them because they are private, then you can use the private_modules field:

(library
 (name foo)
 (private_modules common utils))

Writing an explicit main library file is only relevant in the following cases:

  • when you want to expose some modules with a different name/path, for instance module X = Foo.Bar.X
  • when you want to have toplevel values in your library
  • when you simply want to expose a different API to the outside world

I hope that answers your question.

6 Likes
3

Hi @jeremiedimino,

This answers my question perfectly thank you very much.
Dune keeps surprising me with its elegance as I use it.

Thank you !

4

Since when do we have private_modules?
I needed that one.

2 Likes
5

It was added in 1.2.0; you can find the full changelog here.

1 Like