Installing OCaml locally

To work on the exercises, you will need these pieces of software:

1. OPAM, the OCaml Package manager

   See Real World Ocaml, 2nd Ed.: Installation Instructions for how to install and configure OPAM for your operating system.

2. The OCaml compiler

   See a list of available versions:

   opam switch
   

   If you already have a switch for OCaml 5.1, either load that by running opam switch <switch-name>, or create a new switch by running:

   opam switch create exercism 5.4.0
   

   The name exercism here is optional, but naming your switches is a good practice.

3. Install extended standard libraries and test libraries

   Run the following to install the dependencies required by this track:

   opam install base core_kernel ounit qcheck
   

   Some exercises use only the OCaml standard library, and some use the extended libraries by Jane Street called Base and Core_kernel. The test library is called OUnit, and some exercises additionally use the QCheck library for property-based tests. Running the above command will install these libraries.

4. Install and use interactive shell (optional)

   A summary of Setting up and using utop:

   opam install utop
   

   Create a new file named .ocamlinit in your home directory and add the following lines to it:

   #use "topfind";;
   #require "base";;
   open Base
   

5. Install tools in VS Code (optional)

   If you use VS Code:

   • Install the OCaml language server from here.
   • Install the OCaml VS Code extension from here, or search for OCaml Platform by Ocaml Labs.