This chapter describes the OCaml core library, which is composed of declarations for built-in types and exceptions, plus the module Pervasives that provides basic operations on these built-in types. The Pervasives module is special in two ways:
The declarations of the built-in types and the components of module Pervasives are printed one by one in typewriter font, followed by a short comment. All library modules and the components they provide are indexed at the end of this report.
The following built-in types and predefined exceptions are always defined in the compilation environment, but are not part of any module. As a consequence, they can only be referred by their short names.
type int
The type of integer numbers.
type char
The type of characters.
type bytes
The type of (writable) byte sequences.
type string
The type of (read-only) character strings.
type float
The type of floating-point numbers.
type bool = false | true
The type of booleans (truth values).
type unit = ()
The type of the unit value.
type exn
The type of exception values.
type 'a array
The type of arrays whose elements have type 'a.
type 'a list = [] | :: of 'a * 'a list
The type of lists whose elements have type 'a.
type 'a option = None | Some of 'a
The type of optional values of type 'a.
type int32
The type of signed 32-bit integers. Literals for 32-bit integers are suffixed by l. See the Int32[Int32] module.
type int64
The type of signed 64-bit integers. Literals for 64-bit integers are suffixed by L. See the Int64[Int64] module.
type nativeint
The type of signed, platform-native integers (32 bits on 32-bit processors, 64 bits on 64-bit processors). Literals for native integers are suffixed by n. See the Nativeint[Nativeint] module.
type ('a, 'b, 'c, 'd, 'e, 'f) format6
The type of format strings. 'a is the type of the parameters of the format, 'f is the result type for the printf-style functions, 'b is the type of the first argument given to %a and %t printing functions (see module Printf[Printf]), 'c is the result type of these functions, and also the type of the argument transmitted to the first argument of kprintf-style functions, 'd is the result type for the scanf-style functions (see module Scanf[Scanf]), and 'e is the type of the receiver function for the scanf-style functions.
type 'a lazy_t
This type is used to implement the Lazy[Lazy] module. It should not be used directly.
exception Match_failure of (string * int * int)
Exception raised when none of the cases of a pattern-matching apply. The arguments are the location of the match keyword in the source code (file name, line number, column number).
exception Assert_failure of (string * int * int)
Exception raised when an assertion fails. The arguments are the location of the assert keyword in the source code (file name, line number, column number).
exception Invalid_argument of string
Exception raised by library functions to signal that the given arguments do not make sense. The string gives some information to the programmer. As a general rule, this exception should not be caught, it denotes a programming error and the code should be modified not to trigger it.
exception Failure of string
Exception raised by library functions to signal that they are
undefined on the given arguments. The string is meant to give some
information to the programmer; you must not pattern match on
the string literal because it may change in future versions (use
Failure _ instead).
exception Not_found
Exception raised by search functions when the desired object could not be found.
exception Out_of_memory
Exception raised by the garbage collector when there is insufficient memory to complete the computation.
exception Stack_overflow
Exception raised by the bytecode interpreter when the evaluation stack reaches its maximal size. This often indicates infinite or excessively deep recursion in the user’s program. (Not fully implemented by the native-code compiler; see section 12.5.)
exception Sys_error of string
Exception raised by the input/output functions to report an
operating system error. The string is meant to give some
information to the programmer; you must not pattern match on
the string literal because it may change in future versions (use
Sys_error _ instead).
exception End_of_file
Exception raised by input functions to signal that the end of file has been reached.
exception Division_by_zero
Exception raised by integer division and remainder operations when their second argument is zero.
exception Sys_blocked_io
A special case of Sys_error raised when no I/O is possible on a non-blocking I/O channel.
exception Undefined_recursive_module of (string * int * int)
Exception raised when an ill-founded recursive module definition is evaluated. (See section 8.3.) The arguments are the location of the definition in the source code (file name, line number, column number).