I recently decided to learn more about functional programming by developing a few projects in OCaml and reading Real World OCaml. Setting up the OCaml environment proved to be a bit of a challenge, however.

For my environment, I’m using the OCaml compiler, ocamlbuild tool, OPAM package manager, and several libraries including Jane Street Capital’s Core library. I’m using the taureg emacs mode for editing.

The first step is to install OPAM from packages provided by the OpenSUSE developers:

$ sudo yum install yum-utils $ sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:ocaml/CentOS_7/home:ocaml.repo $ sudo yum install opam $ opam init $ eval `opam config env`

Originally, I made the mistake of installing the ocaml packages through yum . However, I ran into compatibility issues with opam when trying to install camlp4 . Instead, you should use opam to install the compiler:

$ opam switch 4.02.1

Building and installing the compiler takes a while. The next step is to install libraries suggested by Real World OCaml:

$ opam install core utop $ opam install async yojson core_extended core_bench cohttp async_graphics cryptokit menhir

To set up the utop interactive environment, add the following text to ~/.ocamlinit :

#use "topfind";; #thread;; #camlp4o;; #require "core.top";; #require "core.syntax";;