Build system

Melange is deeply integrated with Dune, the most widely used build system for OCaml. This integration enables developers to create a single project with both OCaml native executables and frontend applications that are built with Melange, and even share code between both platforms in an easy manner.

Dune orchestrates and plans the work needed to compile a project, copies files when needed, and prepares everything so that Melange takes OCaml source files and convert them into JavaScript code.

Let’s now dive into the Melange compilation model and go through a brief guide on how to work with Dune in Melange projects.

Compilation model

Melange compiles a single source file to a single JavaScript module. This compilation model simplifies debugging the produced JavaScript code and allows to import assets like CSS files and fonts in the same way as one would do in a JavaScript project. It also facilitates the integration of Melange with JavaScript module bundlers such as Webpack, or other alternatives.

As an example of integration with Webpack, you can refer to the Melange opam template. To create a repository based on this template, follow this link.

How is Melange integrated into Dune?

Dune is an OCaml build system that Melange projects can use to specify libraries and applications. It’s optimized for monorepos and makes project maintenance easier. This section provides an overview of Dune’s features and explains how to use it to build Melange applications.

Features

Dune is designed with OCaml in mind, which makes it an ideal tool for Melange developers. It provides several benefits, including:

  • Easy specification of libraries and executables.
  • Optimized for monorepos: no need for npm link or similar solutions.
  • Easy project maintenance, as one can rearrange folders without updating the paths to libraries.
  • Hygiene is maintained in Dune by building out of source: all compilation artifacts are placed in a separate _build folder. Users can optionally copy them back to the source tree.
  • Dune provides a variety of additional features including cram tests, integration with Odoc, Melange, Js_of_ocaml, watch mode, Merlin/LSP integration for editor support, cross compilation, and generation of opam files.

Creating a new project

To understand how to use Dune, let’s create a small Melange application.

First of all, create an opam switch, as shown in the package management section:

opam switch create . 4.14.1 --deps-only

Install the latest versions of Dune and Melange in the switch:

opam update
opam install dune melange
As we will be using Reason syntax, let’s install the `reason` package too: 
opam install reason

Create a file named dune-project. This file will tell Dune a few things about our project configuration:

(lang dune 3.8)

(using melange 0.1)

The first line (lang dune 3.8) tells Dune which version of the "Dune language" (the language used in dune files) we want to use. Melange support in Dune is only available from version 3.8.

The second line (using melange 0.1) tells Dune we want to use the Melange extension of the Dune language.

Adding a library

Next, create a folder lib, and a dune file inside. Put the following content inside the dune file:

(library
 (name lib)
 (modes melange))
Create a file lib.ml in the same folder:
Create a file lib.re in the same folder: 
let name = "Jane"

let name = "Jane";

The top level configuration entries —like the library one that appears in the dune file— are referred to as stanzas, and the inner ones —like name and modes— are referred to as fields of the stanza.

All stanzas are well covered in the Dune documentation site, where we can find the reference for the library stanza.

Dune is designed to minimize the need for configuration changes when modifying the project folder structure. For example, you can move the lib folder to a different location within the project, and all build commands will continue to work without requiring any updates to any dune file. This feature proves to be quite convenient.

Entry points with melange.emit

Libraries are useful to encapsulate behavior and logical components of our application, but they won’t produce any JavaScript artifacts on their own.

To generate JavaScript code, we need to define an entry point of our application. In the root folder, create another dune file:

(melange.emit
 (target app)
 (libraries lib))
And an app.ml file:
And an app.re file: 
let () = Js.log Lib.name

let () = Js.log(Lib.name);

The melange.emit stanza tells Dune to generate JavaScript files from a set of libraries and modules. In-depth documentation about this stanza can be found in the Dune docs.

The file structure of the app should look something like this:

project_name/
├── _opam
├── lib
│   ├── dune
│   └── lib.ml
├── dune-project
├── dune
└── app.ml
project_name/
├── _opam
├── lib
│   ├── dune
│   └── lib.re
├── dune-project
├── dune
└── app.re

Building the project

We can build the project now, which will produce the JavaScript code from our sources using the Melange compiler:

$ dune build @melange

This command tells dune to build all the targets that have an alias melange attached to them. Aliases are build targets that don’t produce any file and have configurable dependencies.

By default, all the targets in a melange.emit stanza and the libraries it depends on are attached to the melange alias. We can define explicit aliases though, as we will see below.

If everything went well, we should be able to run the resulting JavaScript with Node.js. As we mentioned above while going through its features, Dune places all artifacts inside the _build folder to not pollute any source folders. So we will point Node to the script placed in that folder, to see the expected output:

$ node _build/default/app/app.js
Jane

JavaScript artifacts layout

In the command above we had to look for the app.js file inside an app folder, but we don’t have any such folder in our sources. This folder is the one declared in the target field of the melange.emit stanza, which Dune will use to know where to place the generated JavaScript artifacts.

As a more complex example, consider the following setup:

project_name/
├── dune-project
├── lib
│   ├── dune
│   └── foo.ml
└── emit
    └── dune
project_name/
├── dune-project
├── lib
│   ├── dune
│   └── foo.re
└── emit
    └── dune

With emit/dune being:

(melange.emit
 (target app)
 (libraries lib))

And lib/dune:

(library
 (name lib)
 (modes melange))
Then, the JavaScript artifacts for `foo.ml` will be placed under:
Then, the JavaScript artifacts for `foo.re` will be placed under: 
_build/default/emit/app/lib/foo.js

More generically:

  • For a melange.emit stanza defined in a dune file located in the relative workspace path $melange-emit-folder
  • Which includes a target field named $target, like (target $target)
  • For a source file called $name.ml$name.re, placed in the relative workspace path $path-to-source-file

The path to the generated JavaScript file from $name.ml$name.re will be:

_build/default/$melange-emit-folder/$target/$path-to-source-file/$name.js

Guidelines for melange.emit

The following recommendations around melange.emit have been tested within large industrial projects, and have proven to be helpful guidelines to deal with complexity, maintenance and build performance.

  • To simplify access to the generated JavaScript files from tools like Webpack, it is recommended to place the dune files containing the melange.emit stanzas in the project’s root folder. This ensures that the generated JavaScript files are directly placed under the _build/default/$target path.
  • To minimize the risk of inadvertent increases in bundle size, it is advisable to reduce the number of melange.emit stanzas to a minimum, ideally just one. Having multiple melange.emit stanzas may result in multiple copies of JavaScript code generated from the same library. By consolidating the melange.emit stanzas, you can mitigate this issue and ensure more efficient bundle sizes.

Using aliases

The default melange alias is useful for prototyping or when working on small projects, but larger projects might define multiple entry points or melange.emit stanzas. In these cases, it is useful to have a way to build individual stanzas. To do so, one can define explicit aliases for each one of them by using the alias field.

Let’s define a custom alias my-app for our melange.emit stanza:

(melange.emit
 (target app)
 (alias my-app)
 (libraries lib))

Now we can refer to this new alias:

$ dune build @my-app

Note that if we try to build again using the default melange alias, Dune will return an error, as there are no more targets attached to it.

$ dune build @melange
Error: Alias "melange" specified on the command line is empty.
It is not defined in . or any of its descendants.

Handling assets

Sometimes we want to use CSS files, fonts, or other assets in our Melange projects. Due to the way Dune works, our assets will have to be copied to the _build folder and installed. To make this process as easy as possible, Dune provides a way to specify these dependencies, depending on the stanza:

  • For library stanzas, a field melange.runtime_deps
  • For melange.emit stanzas, a field runtime_deps

Both fields are documented in the Melange page of the Dune documentation site.

For the sake of learning how to work with assets in a Melange project, let’s say that we want to read the string in Lib.name from a text file. We will combine the field melange.runtime_deps with some bindings to Node that Melange provides. Check the next section, "Communicate with JavaScript", it you want to learn more about how bindings work.

So, let’s add a new file name.txt inside lib folder, that just contains the name Jane.

Then, adapt the lib/dune file. We will need to add the melange.runtime_deps field, as well as a preprocessing field that will allow to use the bs.raw extension (more about these extensions in the "Communicate with JavaScript" section), in order to get the value of the __dirname environment variable:

(library
 (name lib)
 (modes melange)
 (melange.runtime_deps name.txt)
 (preprocess (pps melange.ppx)))
Finally, update lib/lib.ml to read from the recently added file:
Finally, update lib/lib.re to read from the recently added file: 
let dir = [%mel.raw "__dirname"]
let file = "name.txt"
let name = Node.Fs.readFileSync (dir ^ "/" ^ file) `ascii

let dir = [%mel.raw "__dirname"];
let file = "name.txt";
let name = Node.Fs.readFileSync(dir ++ "/" ++ file, `ascii);

After these changes, once we build the project, we should still be able to run the application file with Node:

$ dune build @my-app
$ node _build/default/app/app.js
Jane

The same approach could be used to copy fonts, CSS or SVG files, or any other asset in your project.

Dune offers great flexibility to specify dependencies. Another interesting feature are globs, that allow to simplify the configuration when depending on multiple files. For example:

(melange.runtime_deps
 (glob_files styles/*.css)
 (glob_files images/*.png)
 (glob_files static/*.{pdf,txt}))

See the dependency specification docs to learn more about it.

With runtime dependencies, we have reached the end of this Dune guide for Melange developers. For further details about how Dune works and its integration with Melange, check the Dune documentation, and the Melange opam template.

CommonJS or ES6 modules

Melange produces JavaScript modules that export the functions they declare, and declare imports for the values and modules they depend on.

By default, Melange will produce CommonJS modules, but it is possible to configure it to generate ES6 modules.

Use the module_systems field in the melange.emit stanza to emit ES6 modules:

(melange.emit
 (target app)
 (alias my-app)
 (libraries lib)
 (module_systems es6))

If no extension is specified, the resulting JavaScript files will use .js. You can specify a different extension with a pair (<module_system> <extension>), e.g. (module_systems (es6 mjs)). Multiple module systems can be used in the same field as long as their extensions are different. For example, (module_systems commonjs (es6 mjs)) will produce one set of JavaScript files using CommonJS and the .js extension, and another using ES6 and the .mjs extension.