Question

so I am having trouble with debugging in OCaml. The problem is that I am writing very simple code, but I keep getting a problem that seems easy to fix – i just don’t know how!

    let rec multiplier (int1: int) (int2: int) (int3: int) : int =
    let product : int
if int1 >= int2 then(
    if int1 >= int3 then product = int1 * int2
    else product = int1 * int3
)
else if int2 >= int1 then( 
    if int1 >= int3 then product = int2 * int1
    else product = int2 * int3 
)

I keep getting a red ‘x’ and a squigley line under the first “if” with the error : “Unexpected token: if”

Thanks!

Answer 1

Don’t think of = be an assignment; there basically is no assignment in Ocaml (except := used for references).

Write something like

 let area : int = 
   if side1 >= side2 then ( 
     if side2 >= side3 then side1 * side3
     else side1 * side3
    )
   else if side2 >= side1 then ( 
     if side1 >= side3 then side2 * side1
     else side2 * side3
   )
   else 0 

Remember that the if … then …. else …. construct is an expression; it is more like the ternary ?: conditional operator of C than like its if statement.

Remember that Ocaml don’t have statements, only expressions. (Its ; operator e.g a;b is similar to C comma operator a,b meaning compute a, discard the result, and compute b giving its result for the whole expression)