Enhancing OCaml Projects with Project-Wide Occurrences Feature

Discover the new project-wide occurrences feature introduced to OCaml through merlin-lib 5.1-502 and ocaml-lsp-server, allowing you to find all identifier usages across your project's source files.

Published 3 weeks ago by @tarides on tarides.com

Abstract

The article introduces a new feature in OCaml's tooling, project-wide occurrences, tracking all identifier usages within a project, enhancing developer efficiency. It delves into the technical implementation, including two-step shape reduction, indexer tool operation, and Merlin configuration updates. While highlighting the tooling compatibility, like Dune, and version dependencies for enabling this feature, the article emphasizes potential limitations like queries working better from implementation files over interfaces.

Results

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Discussion

How this relates to indie hacking and solopreneurship.

Relevance

This article is crucial for enhancing your OCaml projects by leveraging the project-wide occurrences feature to efficiently track identifier usages. It provides insights into technical implementation details and necessary tool configurations to enable this feature successfully.

Applicability

You should try out the project-wide occurrences feature in your OCaml projects, especially those compatible with OCaml 5.2, by updating your switch with required tool versions using Dune. Ensure to build the index for Merlin and LSP for accurate query results, then query for project-wide occurrences using supported editors like Emacs or Vim.

Risks

When using the project-wide occurrences feature, be cautious about its initial limitations, such as better query results from implementation files rather than interfaces. Additionally, ensuring the correct configuration and index building for tools like Merlin and LSP is crucial for accurate and comprehensive results.

Conclusion

The implementation of project-wide occurrences indicates a move towards enhanced developer tools in the OCaml ecosystem, potentially leading to improved code navigation and understanding. Future enhancements, such as returning declarations linked to identifiers and enabling project-wide renaming queries, can further boost productivity and code maintenance within OCaml projects.

References

Further Informations and Sources related to this analysis. See also my Ethical Aggregation policy.

Project-Wide Occurrences: A New Navigation Feature for OCaml 5.2 Users
Project-Wide Occurrences With the release of merlin-lib 5.1-502 and associated ocaml-lsp-server, we brought a new, exciting feature to OCaml…

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