package dune-configurator

You can search for identifiers within the package.

in-package search v0.2.0

Helper library for gathering system configuration

Install

Dune Dependency

github.com Readme Changelog MIT License Edit opam file Versions (69)

Authors

J

Jane Street Group, LLC <opensource@janestreet.com>

Maintainers

J

Jane Street Group, LLC <opensource@janestreet.com>

Sources

dune-3.19.1.tbz

sha256=a10386f980cda9417d1465466bed50dd2aef9c93b9d06a0f7feeedb0a1541158

sha512=d1622939713133a1f28617229896298d6ef194c48a47d011e4b752490fc83893cc920a8395d7ac60bc384a6c9b233ebf0665f38f74f2774a983e9d3b241a7746

Description

dune-configurator is a small library that helps writing OCaml scripts that test features available on the system, in order to generate config.h files for instance. Among other things, dune-configurator allows one to:

test if a C program compiles
query pkg-config
import #define from OCaml header files
generate config.h file

Published: 12 Jun 2025

README

A Composable Build System for OCaml

" " " "

Dune is a build system for OCaml. It provides a consistent experience and takes care of the low-level details of OCaml compilation. You need only to provide a description of your project, and Dune will do the rest.

Dune implements a scheme that's inspired from the one used inside Jane Street and adapted to the open source world. It has matured over a long time and is used daily by hundreds of developers, meaning it's highly tested and productive.

Dune comes with a manual. If you want to get started without reading too much, look at the quick start guide or watch this introduction video.

The example directory contains examples of projects using Dune.

How does it work?

Dune reads project metadata from dune files, which are static files with a simple S-expression syntax. It uses this information to setup build rules, generate configuration files for development tools such as Merlin, handle installation, etc.

Dune itself is fast, has very little overhead, and supports parallel builds on all platforms. It has no system dependencies. OCaml is all you need to build Dune and packages using Dune.

In particular, one can install OCaml on Windows with a binary installer and then use only the Windows Console to build Dune and packages using Dune.

Strengths

Composable

Dune is composable, meaning that multiple Dune projects can be arranged together, leading to a single build that Dune knows how to execute. This allows for monorepos of projects.

Dune makes simultaneous development on multiple packages a trivial task.

Gracefully Handles Multi-Package Repositories

Dune knows how to handle repositories containing several packages. When building via opam, it is able to correctly use libraries that were previously installed, even if they are already present in the source tree.

The magic invocation is:

$ dune build --only-packages <package-name> @install

Build Against Several Configurations at Once

Dune can build a given source code repository against several configurations simultaneously. This helps maintaining packages across several versions of OCaml, as you can test them all at once without hassle.

In particular, this makes it easy to handle cross-compilation. This feature requires opam.

Installation

Requirements

Dune requires OCaml version 4.08.0 to build itself and can build OCaml projects using OCaml 4.02.3 or greater.

Installation

We recommended installing Dune via the opam package manager:

$ opam install dune

If you are new to opam, make sure to run eval $(opam config env) to make dune available in your PATH. The dune binary is self-contained and relocatable, so you can safely copy it somewhere else to make it permanently available.

You can also build it manually with:

$ make release
$ make install

If you do not have make, you can do the following:

$ ocaml boot/bootstrap.ml
$ ./dune.exe build -p dune --profile dune-bootstrap
$ ./dune.exe install dune

The first command builds the dune.exe binary. The second builds the additional files installed by Dune, such as the man pages, and the last simply installs all of that on the system.

Please note: unless you ran the optional ./configure script, you can simply copy dune.exe anywhere and it will just work. dune is fully relocatable and discovers its environment at runtime rather than hard-coding it at compilation time.