[Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I have a need to make automated stylistic and syntax checks to
a large amount of OCaml code.  The sort of rules would be:

 - Check that indentation is used, and used consistently.

 - Excessive use of parentheses where not needed.

 - Use ( .. ) instead of begin .. end.

 - Flag uses of various Obj.* and unsafe_* functions.

It seems to me that some of these could be tested with either camlp4
or ppx.  I think if we allowed the checker to go back to the original
code (eg to see if the parser parsed as block as '(' or 'begin'),
it might be able to check all of these things.

Anyway, before I start on it I'm wondering if anyone has ever
looked at doing this kind of thing?

Rich.

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Tue, Jul 04, 2017 at 03:01:28PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> I have a need to make automated stylistic and syntax checks to
> a large amount of OCaml code.  The sort of rules would be:
> 
>  - Check that indentation is used, and used consistently.
> 
>  - Excessive use of parentheses where not needed.
> 
>  - Use ( .. ) instead of begin .. end.
> 
>  - Flag uses of various Obj.* and unsafe_* functions.
> 
> It seems to me that some of these could be tested with either camlp4
> or ppx.  I think if we allowed the checker to go back to the original
> code (eg to see if the parser parsed as block as '(' or 'begin'),
> it might be able to check all of these things.
> 
> Anyway, before I start on it I'm wondering if anyone has ever
> looked at doing this kind of thing?

Now that I actually formulate the right search terms, I see
that ocp-lint exists :-/

Rich.

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[Mark Bradley]

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Another idea that will get you part of the way there is to use refmt to
automatically format the OCaml files to standard layout.

This would cover 3 out of the 4 criteria because:

1. it automatically indents
2. it always reduces parentheses where it can
3. it automatically converts begin and end to parentheses.

The 4th criteria could potentially be caught using grep.

It's worth an experiment to see if you like the style of code generated by
refmt for OCaml. It certainly does a better job at formatting reason code
from my limited experiments (it doesn't seem to like vertical white space
when generating OCaml, whereas it will include it if you covert the file to
reason, testing version 1.13.5 as of writing).


On 5 July 2017 at 00:03, Richard W.M. Jones <rich@annexia.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 04, 2017 at 03:01:28PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > I have a need to make automated stylistic and syntax checks to
> > a large amount of OCaml code.  The sort of rules would be:
> >
> >  - Check that indentation is used, and used consistently.
> >
> >  - Excessive use of parentheses where not needed.
> >
> >  - Use ( .. ) instead of begin .. end.
> >
> >  - Flag uses of various Obj.* and unsafe_* functions.
> >
> > It seems to me that some of these could be tested with either camlp4
> > or ppx.  I think if we allowed the checker to go back to the original
> > code (eg to see if the parser parsed as block as '(' or 'begin'),
> > it might be able to check all of these things.
> >
> > Anyway, before I start on it I'm wondering if anyone has ever
> > looked at doing this kind of thing?
>
> Now that I actually formulate the right search terms, I see
> that ocp-lint exists :-/
>
> Rich.
>
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> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
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>



-- 
-barkmadley
sent from an internet enabled device
http://barkmadley.com

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Dear Richard,

You may also be interested in Xavier Clerc's Mascot tool:
http://mascot.x9c.fr/

Sébastien.

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[François Bobot]

Hi,

Le 11/07/2017 à 14:22, Sébastien Hinderer a écrit :
> You may also be interested in Xavier Clerc's Mascot tool:
> http://mascot.x9c.fr/

It seems to be a great tool, but it seems only available for old ocaml version
  4.00 <= ocaml-version < 4.02 : http://opam.ocaml.org/packages/mascot/

Best,

-- 
François

Re: [Caml-list] OCaml code style and syntax checking

[Sébastien Hinderer]

François Bobot (2017/07/11 15:03 +0200):
> Hi,
> 
> Le 11/07/2017 à 14:22, Sébastien Hinderer a écrit :
> > You may also be interested in Xavier Clerc's Mascot tool:
> > http://mascot.x9c.fr/
> 
> It seems to be a great tool, but it seems only available for old ocaml version
>  4.00 <= ocaml-version < 4.02 : http://opam.ocaml.org/packages/mascot/

Yeah, I was wondering whether it could be updated but never had the time
to investigate on this.

Sébastien.