Practical Ocaml

By: Joshua B. Smith

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Hardcover | 1 October 2006

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Objective Caml (OCaml) is an open source programming language that allows you to utilize both functional and object-oriented programming. Sporting features such as a robust object system, type safety, and an expansive standard library, OCaml is a language that encourages pragmatic solutions instead of dogmatic ones. Boasting performance on par with the likes of C/C++, and having compilers available for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X, enterprise developers should consider adding this powerful language to their repertoire.

Written for experienced programmers, Practical OCaml teaches OCaml in a code-intensive fashion. Readers are encouraged to follow along with most examples using the OCaml top-level (the interactive interpreter), giving them the opportunity to consider the purpose and syntax of each line. The author's considerable knowledge of the Java, Python, and C++ languages allows him to present the material at a level and perspective that readers hailing from varied programming backgrounds will appreciate.

Language aficionados will be sure to enjoy the occasional digression into tangential topics such as OCaml's impurities from the functional programming perspective, with thoughts about how to overcome them using mutability, references, and classes.

In later chapters, you'll put what you've learned to work, building applications capable of performing complex log-file processing, crawling the Web, filtering spam, and even broadcasting audio over a network using the Shoutcast protocol.

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Published: 8th December 2014

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About the Author	p. xxi
About the Technical Reviewer	p. xxiii
Acknowledgments	p. xxv
Why Objective Caml (OCaml)?	p. 1
Who Benefits from Learning OCaml?	p. 1
What Is OCaml Good For?	p. 2
Who Uses OCaml?	p. 3
Where Did OCaml Come From?	p. 3
What Is the Current State of the Art?	p. 4
Why This Book?	p. 4
What Is Covered?	p. 4
Interacting with OCaml: The Toplevel (Chapter 2)	p. 4
Syntax and Semantics (Chapter 3)	p. 5
Understanding Functions (Chapter 4)	p. 5
Practical: Creating a Simple Database (Chapter 5)	p. 5
Primitive and Composite Types (Chapter 6)	p. 5
Practical: Simple Database Reports, Exports, and Imports (Chapter 7)	p. 5
Collections (Chapter 8)	p. 5
Files and File I/O (Chapter 9)	p. 5
Exception Handling (Chapter 10)	p. 6
Practical: A URI Library (Chapter 11)	p. 6
Using OCamldoc (Chapter 12)	p. 6
Modules and Functors (Chapter 13)	p. 6
Practical: A Spam Filter (Chapter 14)	p. 6
Practical: A Network-Aware Scoring Function (Chapter 15)	p. 6
Ocamllex and Ocamlyacc (Chapter 16)	p. 6
Practical: Complex Log File Parsing (Chapter 17)	p. 6
The Objective Part of Caml (Chapter 18)	p. 7
Digression: OCaml Is Not Pure (Chapter 19)	p. 7
Digression: Functional Programming (Chapter 20)	p. 7
Practical: Web Programming (Chapter 21)	p. 7
Practical: A Shoutcast Server (Chapter 22)	p. 7
Using Threads (Chapter 23)	p. 7
Practical: A Concurrent Web Crawler (Chapter 24)	p. 7
Interfacing with OCaml (Chapter 25)	p. 7
Practical: Time and Logging Libraries (Chapter 26)	p. 8
Practical: Processing Binary Files (Chapter 27)	p. 8
OCaml Development Tools (Chapter 28)	p. 8
Camlp4 (Chapter 29)	p. 8
Conclusion (Chapter 30)	p. 8
What Isn't Covered?	p. 8
What Are My Expectations for You?	p. 8
Conclusion	p. 9
Interacting with OCaml: The Toplevel	p. 11
Distributions of OCaml	p. 12
Official Distribution	p. 12
Unofficial Releases	p. 12
Installing OCaml	p. 12
Windows	p. 12
Linux	p. 14
Interacting with the Toplevel	p. 16
Hello World	p. 17
Final Notes	p. 18
Code Files	p. 18
Basic Code Files	p. 19
Custom Toplevel	p. 20
Why Would You Do This?	p. 20
How Do You Do This?	p. 20
Conclusion	p. 20
Syntax and Semantics	p. 21
Variables in a Constant Language	p. 21
What Variables Are Not	p. 21
Let Bindings	p. 22
Understanding Scope	p. 23
Records and Types	p. 23
Creating Enums and Simple User-Defined Types	p. 26
Defining Records	p. 28
More About Math	p. 29
Integers and Floats	p. 29
Others	p. 29
Defining Functions	p. 30
Imperative Programming	p. 30
Recursion	p. 30
Pattern Matching	p. 31
Signatures	p. 32
Conclusion	p. 32
Understanding Functions	p. 33
Creating Values and Functions	p. 33
Functions Must Have One Return Type	p. 35
Constraining Types in Function Calls	p. 35
Using Higher-Order Functions	p. 36
Using Lists	p. 37
Anonymous Functions	p. 37
Why Use Anonymous Functions?	p. 39
Understanding Consequences of Functions As Data	p. 39
Curried Functions	p. 41
Working with the Distance Type	p. 41
Creating Recursive Functions	p. 44
Why Do Recursive Functions Need a Special Designation?	p. 45
Tail Recursion and Efficient Programming	p. 45
Doing More Pattern Matching	p. 46
Understanding the Default Match	p. 47
Bindings Within Pattern Matches	p. 47
Guarded Matches: A Return to the Distance Calculator	p. 48
Understanding Built-in Functions	p. 48
Using Labels and Optional Arguments	p. 49
Conclusion	p. 50
Practical: Creating a Simple Database	p. 51
Two Modules You Need	p. 51
Using the Hashtbl Module in OCaml	p. 51
Using the Marshal Module	p. 52
How to Use These Modules	p. 52
Working with Files	p. 52
Accounts Database	p. 53
Some Sample Data	p. 53
Important Functions for Handling Data	p. 54
Manipulating the Database Contents	p. 54
Saving and Loading the Database	p. 56
Interacting with the Database	p. 56
Quick Note About Code Length	p. 59
Getting Price Information	p. 59
Conclusion	p. 60
Primitive and Composite Types	p. 61
Constant Type, Dynamic Data	p. 62
Integers (Ints)	p. 62
Floating-Point Numbers (Floats)	p. 63
Strings and Chars	p. 64
Using the Pervasives Module	p. 66
Lists and Arrays	p. 66
Exceptions	p. 66
Other Types	p. 67
Polymorphic Types	p. 67
Composite Types	p. 68
Polymorphic Variant Types	p. 69
Conclusion	p. 71
Practical: Simple Database Reports, Exports, and Imports	p. 73
Format Codes	p. 73
Printf	p. 74
fprintf	p. 75
eprintf	p. 75
printf	p. 75
sprintf	p. 75
bprintf	p. 76
kprintf	p. 76
Scanf	p. 76
Scanning Module	p. 76
fscanf	p. 76
scanf	p. 77
sscanf	p. 77
bscanf	p. 77
kscanf	p. 77
Why Use These Functions?	p. 77
Why Not Regular Expressions?	p. 77
What About Line-Oriented I/O?	p. 78
The Right Tool for the Right Job	p. 78
More About Buffers	p. 80
Writing a Report	p. 80
Writing Export Functions	p. 83
Writing Import Functions	p. 84
Generating Data	p. 86
Conclusion	p. 87
Collections	p. 89
What Are Collections?	p. 90
Comparison Functions	p. 90
Lists	p. 91
Arrays and Matrices	p. 97
Hashtables	p. 100
Queue	p. 103
Stack	p. 105
Set	p. 106
Map	p. 109
Not Quite Collections	p. 110
Labeled Variants	p. 111
Functors	p. 111
Conclusion	p. 111
Files and File I/O	p. 113
Channels	p. 113
Pervasives Module	p. 113
Using Input Channels	p. 114
Using Output Channels	p. 115
Information About Files	p. 117
Locking Files	p. 118
Filenames and Portable Paths	p. 118
Reading Directories	p. 119
Large File Support	p. 120
Sockets	p. 120
Low-level Functions	p. 120
High-level Functions	p. 122
Unix and Windows	p. 122
Conclusion	p. 122
Exception Handling	p. 123
Using Exceptions	p. 123
Understanding Built-in Exceptions	p. 125
Creating Custom Exceptions	p. 127
Why Exceptions Cannot Be Polymorphic	p. 129
Example: Some Error Functions	p. 130
Can You Use an Object Instead?	p. 130
Thou Shalt and Other Rules for Coding	p. 130
Six Simple Rules	p. 131
Using Asserts	p. 133
Getting Line Numbers and Function Names	p. 134
Conclusion	p. 134
Practical: A URI Library	p. 135
Looking at the URI Signature	p. 135
Exceptions	p. 136
Types	p. 136
Functions	p. 137
First Implementation	p. 137
Using the Module	p. 141
Improvements and Toys	p. 141
Mythical Rot13 Path Maker	p. 141
Using Regular Expressions	p. 142
Conclusion	p. 144
Using Ocamldoc	p. 145
Who Uses Ocamldoc?	p. 145
Using Ocamldoc	p. 146
Running the Command	p. 146
Markup	p. 148
A Complete Example	p. 151
Which Files to Document?	p. 153
Creating Custom Tags and Generators	p. 153
Conclusion	p. 154
Modules and Functors	p. 155
Using Modules	p. 155
Defining Modules	p. 156
Defined at the File Level	p. 156
Using Interfaces	p. 158
No Header Files in OCaml	p. 159
Creating Multiple Views of a Module	p. 159
What Are Generics?	p. 160
Understanding Functors	p. 160
When Should You Use Functors?	p. 162
Currying Functors	p. 163
A Complete Example	p. 163
Dealing with Dependencies	p. 166
Installing Modules	p. 167
Library Directory	p. 167
Compiling with Nonstandard Paths	p. 167
Using OCamlMake	p. 167
Using Findlib	p. 167
Creating a Findlib META File	p. 167
Conclusion	p. 168
Practical: A Spam Filter	p. 169
Naive Bayesian Spam Filtration	p. 169
Brief Digression	p. 169
Talking About the Design	p. 170
Code	p. 171
Compiling the Code	p. 174
Running It	p. 175
Things You Might Want	p. 176
Deficiencies in the Code	p. 178
Conclusion	p. 178
Practical: A Network-Aware Scoring Function	p. 179
Supporting Clients and Servers	p. 179
Creating a Simple Server	p. 179
Implementing a Spam Server	p. 182
Providing Client Functions	p. 189
Conclusion	p. 191
Ocamllex and Ocamlyacc	p. 193
Lexing Has No Relation to Luthor	p. 193
Why Use a Lexer Generator?	p. 194
Using Ocamllex	p. 196
Know Your Grammar	p. 202
Why Use a Parser?	p. 203
Using Ocamlyacc	p. 203
Using Ocamlyacc and Ocamllex	p. 207
A More Complicated Example	p. 208
BNF and EBNF	p. 210
Conclusion	p. 211
Practical: Complex Log File Parsing	p. 213
A Simple Example	p. 213
Sample Data	p. 213
Code	p. 214
A Complex Example	p. 217
Example Log File with Various Kinds of Entries	p. 217
Code	p. 217
Discussion	p. 222
Conclusion	p. 223
The Objective Part of Caml	p. 225
Basics	p. 225
Simple Example	p. 226
Why Use Classes and Objects?	p. 227
Object and Class Keywords	p. 228
Methods May Not Be Polymorphic	p. 229
Direct Objects	p. 231
Initializers and Finalizers	p. 232
Privacy and Data Member Access	p. 233
Internal Classes	p. 233
Virtual Classes and Methods	p. 234
Parameterized Objects	p. 234
Constraints	p. 234
Inheritance	p. 236
Simple Inherit	p. 236
Parametric Inherit	p. 237
Composition vs. Inheritance	p. 238
Multiple Inheritance	p. 239
Functional Objects and Object Cloning	p. 241
Larger Example	p. 243
Conclusion	p. 248
Digression: OCaml Is Not Pure	p. 249
Functional Programming	p. 251
Really, Why Should You Care?	p. 251
Purely Functional Data Structures	p. 252
Languages Like OCaml	p. 253
Languages Like Haskell	p. 253
Benefits of Impurity	p. 254
Hiding the Impure	p. 254
Preventing Information Leaks	p. 254
Conclusion	p. 260
Digression: Functional Programming	p. 261
Overview of Programming Styles	p. 261
Structured Programming	p. 262
Object-Oriented Programming	p. 262
Functional Programming	p. 263
Advantages of Functional Programming	p. 266
Less Code	p. 267
Fewer Bugs	p. 268
Programming in the Large	p. 270
Correctness of Programs	p. 271
Concurrency	p. 271
Reasoning About Programs	p. 272
Conclusion	p. 272
Practical: Web Programming	p. 273
What Does Web Programming Mean?	p. 273
CGI	p. 274
FastCGI	p. 275
Integrated Approaches	p. 275
Chapter Focus	p. 276
CGI	p. 276
Ocamlnet	p. 276
Mod_caml	p. 276
Rolling Your Own CGI Functions	p. 277
Benefits	p. 277
Drawbacks	p. 278
Longer Examples	p. 278
Ocamlnet	p. 284
Mod_caml Library	p. 289
Examples	p. 289
If You Are Not Using Apache	p. 291
Conclusion	p. 291
Practical: A Shoutcast Server	p. 293
Shoutcast Protocol	p. 293
Parsing MP3 Files	p. 295
Binary Files	p. 295
Getting the ID3 Tag	p. 295
Server Framework	p. 300
Using the High-Level Connection Functions	p. 305
Implementing the Shoutcast Protocol	p. 305
Connecting to Your Server	p. 307
Conclusion	p. 308
Using Threads	p. 309
Why Do You Need Concurrency?	p. 309
What Kinds of Concurrency Does OCaml Support?	p. 310
Creating and Using a Thread	p. 310
Details About the Modules	p. 316
Thread	p. 316
Mutex	p. 317
Condition	p. 318
Event	p. 319
Some Code from the Last Chapter	p. 322
A More Complex Example	p. 322
Conclusion	p. 327
Practical: A Concurrent Web Crawler	p. 329
Deceptively Simple Application	p. 329
Design Goals	p. 330
Regular Expressions	p. 330
Understanding the Code	p. 332
Building and Running the Code	p. 344
Generating a Graph of a Site	p. 347
Conclusion	p. 348
Interfacing with OCaml	p. 349
Foreign Function Interface	p. 349
Implementing Your Own Primitives	p. 350
Accessing Value Elements	p. 351
Allocation and the Garbage Collector	p. 352
Exceptions	p. 352
Defining Functions	p. 352
Using a Tool	p. 355
IDL and camlidl	p. 355
Understanding Linking Options	p. 356
Readline Example	p. 357
Other Tools	p. 358
Conclusion	p. 358
Practical: Time and Logging Libraries	p. 359
Time Library	p. 359
Time Library via IDL	p. 360
Time Library via CAMLprim	p. 362
Logging Library	p. 365
Make a META File for this Library	p. 371
Conclusion	p. 374
Processing Binary Files	p. 375
Endianness	p. 375
Support for Binary Files and Data	p. 376
First Example	p. 376
Finding Matches Between Binary Files	p. 380
Reading Bitmaps	p. 383
Conway's Game of Life	p. 390
Graphics in OCaml	p. 399
Conclusion	p. 399
OCaml Development Tools	p. 401
Build Tools	p. 401
OCaml Compiler	p. 405
File Extensions Used	p. 408
Findlib	p. 409
Conclusion	p. 410
Camlp4	p. 411
Revised Syntax	p. 411
What Is Camlp4?	p. 412
Streams and Parsers	p. 413
Understanding Streams	p. 413
Understanding Parsers	p. 415
Example Configuration File Parser	p. 415
Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs)	p. 419
Extending OCaml	p. 420
More About Quotations and Levels	p. 421
A Longer Example	p. 421
Complex Example	p. 423
Conclusion	p. 429
Conclusion	p. 431
What This Book Covered	p. 431
ocamllex and ocamlyacc	p. 432
Camlp4 and Stream Parsers	p. 432
Where to Go from Here	p. 433
More Functional Programming	p. 433
Camlp4	p. 433
Resources	p. 433
Mailing Lists	p. 433
Other Resources	p. 434
Thank You	p. 434
Final Example	p. 434
Index	p. 445
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Practical Ocaml

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Hardcover

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