Cppo: cpp for OCaml

Cppo is an equivalent of the C preprocessor for OCaml programs. It allows the definition of simple macros and file inclusion.

Cppo is:

more OCaml-friendly than cpp
easy to learn without consulting a manual
reasonably fast
simple to install and to maintain

Building and installation instructions

The easiest way to install the latest released version of cppo is via OPAM:

opam install cppo

To instead build and install manually, do:

git clone https://github.com/ocaml-community/cppo.git
cd cppo
make
make install

User guide

Cppo is a preprocessor for programming languages that follow lexical rules compatible with OCaml including OCaml-style comments (* ... *). These include Ocamllex, Ocamlyacc, Menhir, and extensions of OCaml based on Camlp4, Camlp5, or ppx. Cppo should work with Bucklescript as well. It won't work so well with Reason code because Reason uses C-style comment delimiters /* and */.

Cppo supports a number of directives. A directive is a # sign placed at the beginning of a line, possibly preceded by some whitespace, and followed by a valid directive name or by a number:

BLANK* "#" BLANK* ("def"|"enddef"|"define"|"undef"
                  |"if"|"ifdef"|"ifndef"|"else"|"elif"|"endif"
                  |"include"
                  |"warning"|"error"
                  |"ext"|"endext") ...

A macro definition that is delimited by #def and #enddef can span several lines. There is no need for protecting line endings with backslash characters \.

A directive (other than #def ... #enddef) can be split into multiple lines by placing a backslash character \ at the end of the line to be continued. In general, any special character can be used as a normal character by preceding it with backslash.

File inclusion

#include "hello.ml"

This is how a source file hello.ml can be included. Relative paths are searched first in the directory of the current file and then in the search paths added on the command line using -I, if any.

Macros

This is a simple macro that doesn't take an argument ("object-like macro" in the cpp jargon):

#define Ms Mississippi

match state with
    Ms -> true
  | _ -> false

After preprocessing by cppo, the code above becomes:

match state with
    Mississippi -> true
  | _ -> false

If needed, defined macros can be undefined. This is required prior to redefining a macro:

#undef X

An important distinction with cpp is that only previously-defined macros are accessible. Defining, undefining or redefining a macro has no effect on how previous macros will expand.

Macros can take arguments. That is, a macro can be parameterized; this is known as a "function-like macro" in cpp jargon. When a parameterized macro is defined and when it is applied, the opening parenthesis must stick to the macro's identifier: that is, there must be no space in between. For example, this text:

#define debug(args) if !debugging then Printf.eprintf args else ()

debug("Testing %i" (1 + 1))

is expanded into:

if !debugging then Printf.eprintf "Testing %i" (1 + 1) else ()

An ordinary macro, which takes no arguments, can be viewed as a parameterized macro that takes zero arguments. However, the syntax differs: when there is no argument, no parentheses are used; when there is at least one argument, parentheses must be used. Here is a summary of the valid syntaxes:

#define FOO 42      (* Definition of an ordinary macro *)
FOO                 (* A use of an ordinary macro *)

#define BAR() 42    (* Invalid! When parentheses are used,
                       there must be at least one parameter *)

#define BAR(x) 42+x (* Definition of a parameterized macro *)
BAR(0)              (* A use of this parameterized macro *)
BAR()               (* Another valid use -- the argument is empty *)

All user-definable macros are constant. There are however two predefined variable macros: __FILE__ and __LINE__ which take the value of the position in the source file where the macro is being expanded.

#define loc (Printf.sprintf "File %S, line %i" __FILE__ __LINE__)

Macros can be defined on the command line as follows:

# preprocessing only
cppo -D 'VERSION 1.0' example.ml

# preprocessing and compiling
ocamlopt -c -pp "cppo -D 'VERSION 1.0'" example.ml

Multi-line macros and nested macros

A macro definition that begins with #define can span several lines. In that case, the end of each line must be protected with a backslash character, as in this example:

#define repeat_until(action,condition) \
  action; \
  while not (condition) do \
    action \
  done

In other words, at the first line ending that is not preceded by a \ character, an #enddefine token is implicitly generated, and the definition ends.

This convention, which is inherited from C, causes two problems. First, protecting every line ending with a \ character is painful. Second, more seriously, this convention does not allow macro definitions to be nested. Indeed, if one attempts to nest two definitions that begin with #define, then only one #enddefine token is generated; it is generated at the first unprotected line ending. So, the beginnings and ends of definitions cannot be correctly balanced.

These problems are avoided by using an alternative syntax where the beginning and end of a macro definition are explicitly marked by #def and #enddef. Here is an example:

#def repeat_until(action,condition)
  action;
  while not (condition) do
    action
  done
#enddef

With this syntax, a macro can span several lines: there is no need to protect line endings with \ characters. Furthermore, this syntax allows macro definitions to be nested: inside a macro definition that is delimited by #def and #enddef, both #def and #define can be used.

Higher-order macros

A parameterized macro can take a parameterized macro as a parameter: this is known as a higher-order macro.

To enable this feature, some annotations are required: when a macro parameter is itself a parameterized macro, it must be annotated with its type.

A macro takes n arguments (where n can be zero) and returns a piece of text. So, to describe the type of a macro, it suffices to describe the types of its n arguments.

Thus, the syntax of types is τ ::= [τ ... τ]. That is, a type is a sequence of n types, without separators, surrounded with square brackets. An ordinary macro, which takes zero parameters, has type []. This is the base type: in other words, it is the type of text. For greater readability, this type can also be written in the form of a single period, .. Here are a few examples of types:

  .       (* An ordinary unparameterized macro: in other words, text    *)
  []      (* Same as above.                                             *)
  [.]     (* A parameterized macro that expects one piece of text       *)
  [..]    (* A parameterized macro that expects two pieces of text      *)
  [[.].]  (* A parameterized macro
             whose first parameter is a parameterized macro of type [.]
             and whose second parameter is a piece of text              *)

In the definition of a parameterized macro M, each parameter X can be annotated with a type by writing X : τ. This is optional: if no annotation is provided, the base type . is assumed. If a parameter X is annotated with a type τ other than the base type, then, when the parameterized macro M is applied, the actual argument Y that is supplied as an instance for X must be the name of a macro of type τ.

This is more easily explained via an example. In the following code,

#define TWICE(e)          (e + e)
#define APPLY(F : [.], e) (let x = (e) in F(x))
let forty_two =
  APPLY(TWICE,1+2+3+4+5+6)

TWICE is a parameterized macro of type [.], and APPLY is a higher-order macro, whose type is [[.].]. Thus, the application APPLY(TWICE, ...) is valid. This code is expanded into:

let forty_two =
   (let x = (1+2+3+4+5+6) in (x + x))

Conditionals

Here is a quick reference on conditionals available in cppo. If you are not familiar with #ifdef, #ifndef, #if, #else and #elif, please refer to the corresponding section in the cpp manual.

#ifndef VERSION
#warning "VERSION is undefined"
#define VERSION "n/a"
#endif
#ifndef VERSION
#error "VERSION is undefined"
#endif
#if OCAML_MAJOR >= 3 && OCAML_MINOR >= 10
...
#endif
#ifdef X
...
#elif defined Y
...
#else
...
#endif

The boolean expressions following #if and #elif may perform arithmetic operations and tests over 64-bit ints.

Boolean expressions:

defined ... followed by an identifier, returns true if such a macro exists
true
false
( ... )
... && ...
... || ...
not ...

Arithmetic comparisons used in boolean expressions:

... = ...
... < ...
... > ...
... <> ...
... <= ...
... >= ...

Arithmetic operators over signed 64-bit ints:

( ... )
... + ...
... - ...
... * ...
... / ...
... mod ...
... lsl ...
... lsr ...
... asr ...
... land ...
... lor ...
... lxor ...
lnot ...

Macro identifiers can be used in place of ints as long as they expand to an int literal or a tuple of int literals, e.g.:

#define one 1

#if one + one <> 2
#error "Something's wrong."
#endif

#define VERSION (1, 0, 5)
#if VERSION <= (1, 0, 2)
#error "Version 1.0.2 or greater is required."
#endif

Version strings (http://semver.org/) can also be passed to cppo on the command line. This results in multiple variables being defined, all sharing the same prefix. See the output of cppo -help (copied at the bottom of this page).

$ cppo -V OCAML:`ocamlc -version`
#if OCAML_VERSION >= (4, 0, 0)
(* All is well. *)
#else
  #error "This version of OCaml is not supported."
#endif

Output:

# 2 "<stdin>"
(* All is well. *)

Source file location

Location directives are the same as in OCaml and are echoed in the output. They consist of a line number optionally followed by a file name:

# 123
# 456 "source"

Messages

Warnings and error messages can be produced by the preprocessor:

#ifndef X
  #warning "Assuming default value for X"
  #define X 1
#elif X = 0
  #error "X may not be null"
#endif

Calling an external processor

Cppo provides a mechanism for converting sections of a file using and external program. Such a section must be placed between #ext and #endext directives.

$ cat foo
ABC
#ext lowercase
DEF
#endext
GHI
#ext lowercase
KLM
NOP
#endext
QRS

$ cppo -x lowercase:'tr "[A-Z]" "[a-z]"' foo
# 1 "foo"
ABC
def
# 5 "foo"
GHI
klm
nop
# 10 "foo"
QRS

In the example above, lowercase is the name given on the command-line to external command 'tr "[A-Z]" "[a-z]"' that reads input from stdin and writes its output to stdout.

Escaping

The following characters can be escaped by a backslash when needed:

(
)
,
#

In OCaml # is used for method calls. It is usually not a problem because in order to be interpreted as a preprocessor directive, it must be the first non-blank character of a line and be a known directive. If an object has a define method and you want # to appear first on a line, you would have to use \# instead:

obj
  \#define

Line directives in the usual format supported by OCaml are correctly interpreted by cppo.

Comments and string literals constitute single tokens even when they span across multiple lines. Therefore newlines within string literals and comments should remain as-is (no preceding backslash) even in a macro body:

#define welcome \
"**********
*Welcome!*
**********
"

Concatenation

CONCAT() is a predefined macro that takes two arguments, removes any whitespace between and around them and fuses them into a single identifier. The result of the concatenation must be a valid identifier of the form [A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]+ or [A-Za-z], or empty.

For example,

#define x 123
CONCAT(z, x)

expands into:

z123

However the following is illegal:

#define x 123
CONCAT(x, z)

because 123z does not form a valid identifier.

CONCAT(a,b) is roughly equivalent to a##b in cpp syntax.

CAPITALIZE

CAPITALIZE() is a predefined macro that takes one argument, removes any leading and trailing whitespace, reduces each internal whitespace sequence to a single space character and produces a valid OCaml identifer with first character.

For example,

#define EVENT(n,ty) external CONCAT(on,CAPITALIZE(n)) : ty = STRINGIFY(n) [@@bs.val]
EVENT(exit, unit -> unit)

is expanded into:

external  onExit  :  unit -> unit = "exit" [@@bs.val]

Stringification

STRINGIFY() is a predefined macro that takes one argument, removes any leading and trailing whitespace, reduces each internal whitespace sequence to a single space character and produces a valid OCaml string literal.

For example,

#define TRACE(f) Printf.printf ">>> %s\n" STRINGIFY(f); f
TRACE(print_endline) "Hello"

is expanded into:

Printf.printf ">>> %s\n" "print_endline"; print_endline "Hello"

STRINGIFY(x) is the equivalent of #x in cpp syntax.

Ocamlbuild plugin

An ocamlbuild plugin is available. To use it, you can call ocamlbuild with the argument -plugin-tag package(cppo_ocamlbuild) (only since ocaml 4.01 and cppo >= 0.9.4).

Starting from cppo >= 1.6.0, the cppo_ocamlbuild plugin is in a separate OPAM package (opam install cppo_ocamlbuild).

With Oasis :

OCamlVersion: >= 4.01
AlphaFeatures: ocamlbuild_more_args
XOCamlbuildPluginTags: package(cppo_ocamlbuild)

After that, you need to add in your myocamlbuild.ml :

let () =
  Ocamlbuild_plugin.dispatch
    (fun hook ->
      Ocamlbuild_cppo.dispatcher hook ;
    )

By default the plugin will apply cppo on all files ending in .cppo.ml cppo.mli, and cppo.mlpack, in order to produce .ml, .mli, and.mlpack files. The following tags are available:

cppo_D(X) ≡ -D X
cppo_U(X) ≡ -U X
cppo_q ≡ -q
cppo_s ≡ -s
cppo_n ≡ -n
cppo_x(NAME:CMD_TEMPLATE) ≡ -x NAME:CMD_TEMPLATE
The tag cppo_I(foo) can behave in two way:
- If foo is a directory, it's equivalent to -I foo.
- If foo is a file, it adds foo as a dependency and apply -I parent(foo).
cppo_V(NAME:VERSION) ≡ -V NAME:VERSION
cppo_V_OCAML ≡ -V OCAML:VERSION, where VERSION is the version of OCaml that ocamlbuild uses.

Detailed command-line usage and options

Usage: ./cppo [OPTIONS] [FILE1 [FILE2 ...]]
Options:
  -D DEF
          Equivalent of interpreting '#define DEF' before processing the
          input
  -U IDENT
          Equivalent of interpreting '#undef IDENT' before processing the
          input
  -I DIR
          Add directory DIR to the search path for included files
  -V VAR:MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH-OPTPRERELEASE+OPTBUILD
          Define the following variables extracted from a version string
          (following the Semantic Versioning syntax http://semver.org/):

            VAR_MAJOR           must be a non-negative int
            VAR_MINOR           must be a non-negative int
            VAR_PATCH           must be a non-negative int
            VAR_PRERELEASE      if the OPTPRERELEASE part exists
            VAR_BUILD           if the OPTBUILD part exists
            VAR_VERSION         is the tuple (MAJOR, MINOR, PATCH)
            VAR_VERSION_STRING  is the string MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
            VAR_VERSION_FULL    is the original string

          Example: cppo -V OCAML:4.02.1

  -o FILE
          Output file
  -q
          Identify and preserve camlp4 quotations
  -s
          Output line directives pointing to the exact source location of
          each token, including those coming from the body of macro
          definitions.  This behavior is off by default.
  -n
          Do not output any line directive other than those found in the
          input (overrides -s).
  -version
          Print the version of the program and exit.
  -x NAME:CMD_TEMPLATE
          Define a custom preprocessor target section starting with:
            #ext "NAME"
          and ending with:
            #endext

          NAME must be a lowercase identifier of the form [a-z][A-Za-z0-9_]*

          CMD_TEMPLATE is a command template supporting the following
          special sequences:
            %F  file name (unescaped; beware of potential scripting attacks)
            %B  number of the first line
            %E  number of the last line
            %%  a single percent sign

          Filename, first line number and last line number are also
          available from the following environment variables:
          CPPO_FILE, CPPO_FIRST_LINE, CPPO_LAST_LINE.

          The command produced is expected to read the data lines from stdin
          and to write its output to stdout.
  -help  Display this list of options
  --help  Display this list of options

Contributing

See our contribution guidelines at https://github.com/mjambon/documents/blob/master/how-to-contribute.md

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

README.md

README.md

Cppo: cpp for OCaml

Meta

Building and installation instructions

User guide

File inclusion

Macros

Multi-line macros and nested macros

Higher-order macros

Conditionals

Source file location

Messages

Calling an external processor

Escaping

Concatenation

CAPITALIZE

Stringification

Ocamlbuild plugin

Detailed command-line usage and options

Contributing

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Cppo: cpp for OCaml

Meta

Building and installation instructions

User guide

File inclusion

Macros

Multi-line macros and nested macros

Higher-order macros

Conditionals

Source file location

Messages

Calling an external processor

Escaping

Concatenation

CAPITALIZE

Stringification

Ocamlbuild plugin

Detailed command-line usage and options

Contributing