package gen_js_api
Install
Dune Dependency
Authors
Maintainers
Sources
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doc/README.html
gen_js_api: easy OCaml bindings for Javascript libraries
Overview
gen_js_api aims at simplifying the creation of OCaml bindings for Javascript libraries. It must currently be used with the js_of_ocaml compiler, although other ways to run OCaml code "against" Javascript might be supported later with the same binding definitions (for instance, Bucklescript, or direct embedding of a JS engine in a native OCaml application).
gen_js_api is based on the following ideas:
- Authors of bindings write OCaml signatures for Javascript libraries and the tool generates the actual binding code with a combination of implicit conventions and explicit annotations.
- The generated binding code takes care of translating values between OCaml and Javascript and of dealing with Javascript calling conventions.
- All syntactic processing is done by authors of bindings: the client code is normal OCaml code and does not depend on custom syntax nor on JS-specific types.
gen_js_api can be used in two complementary ways:
- Generating .ml implementations from annotated .mli interfaces, in order to create the code for stub libraries.
- As a ppx preprocessor on implementations to define local bindings.
Examples
The repository contains some examples of OCaml bindings to Javascript libraries created with gen_js_api:
- Very partial bindings to jQuery, with some example client code.
- Partial bindings to Javascript strings and regexps and Javascript dates.
- Some ad hoc test to exercise various features.
- An example of a self-contained program, a simple calculator, implementing local .bindings
Documentation
- Install and use
- Low-level binding to Javascript
- Using gen_js_api to generate .ml from .mli
- Using gen_js_api as a ppx processor
- Default naming convention
- JS-able types and type declarations
- Value bindings
- Class-wrapping bindings
- TODO list
Related projects
- js_of_ocaml: The compiler and runtime system on which gen_js_api relies. (Note: gen_js_api doesn't depend on js_of_ocaml's OCaml library, nor on its language extension.)
- goji: A DSL to describe OCaml bindings for JavaScript libraries.
- DefinitelyMaybeTyped: A project to parse DefinitelyTyped interfaces and produce OCaml interfaces.
- Bucklescript: Another compiler from OCaml to Javascript.
About
gen_js_api has been created by LexiFi for porting a web application from Javascript to OCaml. The tool has been used in production since 2015.
This gen_js_api package is licensed by LexiFi under the terms of the MIT license.
See see Changelog
Contact: alain.frisch@lexifi.com
Contributors:
- Alain Frisch
- Sebastien Briais