Ppxlib - Meta-programming for OCaml

User manual API documentation

Overview

Ppxlib is the standard library for ppx rewriters and other programs that manipulate the in-memory reprensation of OCaml programs, a.k.a the "Parsetree".

It also comes bundled with two ppx rewriters that are commonly used to write tools that manipulate and/or generate Parsetree values; ppxlib.metaquot which allows to construct Parsetree values using the OCaml syntax directly and ppxlib.traverse which provides various ways of automatically traversing values of a given type, in particular allowing to inject a complex structured value into generated code.

For more information about ppxlib and how to use it, please consult the user manual.

What is the relation between ppxlib and other ppx libraries?

The ppx world has a long historied history, and if you look around you may find other projects that offer functionalities similar to ppxlib. The following blog post gives a good overview of the various libraries that have been developed over time. At this point, ppxlib is considered as the de facto library for writing ppx rewriters.

History of the project

This repository was created by merging several older smaller projects that were developed at Jane Street. See the history for more details.