Question

The Ocaml manual contains an exercise (here) in which library object files are loaded in the toplevel loop (the ocaml interactive interpreter) in the following way:

#load "dynlink.cma";;
#load "camlp4o.cma";;

I’m trying to replicate the subsequent code in a compilable source file, and the code requires the above library object files. Can I load these files with a line of code within the source file and compile it with ocamlc? I’ve tried “#load”, “load”, “#use”, “use”, “#require”, “require”, and all these proceded by “#directory” and “directory”. I know that you can include modules with “include ;;”, but this shouldn’t work either, because they’re just library files, not modules. I’ve tried to find a way to do this in the manual, but to no avail.

Do I need to reference the files in the compilation command? If so, how do I do this?

Answer 1

I’m assuming your source is written using extensions implemented by camlp4o. To compile your source, you can say:

ocamlc -pp camlp4o -o myfile myfile.ml

I believe the complexities of the #load command are required only when you want to use the extensions in the toplevel (the interpreter).