Chapter 8  Language extensions

This chapter describes language extensions and convenience features that are implemented in OCaml, but not described in the OCaml reference manual.

16  Extension-only syntax

(Introduced in OCaml 4.02.2, extended in 4.03)

Some syntactic constructions are accepted during parsing and rejected during type checking. These syntactic constructions can therefore not be used directly in vanilla OCaml. However, -ppx rewriters and other external tools can exploit this parser leniency to extend the language with these new syntactic constructions by rewriting them to vanilla constructions.

16.1  Extension operators

(Introduced in OCaml 4.02.2)

infix-symbol::= ...  
 ∣ # {operator-chars} #   {operator-char | #}  
 

Operator names starting with a # character and containing more than one # character are reserved for extensions.

16.2  Extension literals

(Introduced in OCaml 4.03)

float-literal::= ...  
 ∣ [-] (0…9) { 0…9∣ _ } [. { 0…9∣ _ }] [(e∣ E) [+∣ -] (0…9) { 0…9∣ _ }] [g…z∣ G…Z]  
 ∣ [-] (0x∣ 0X) (0…9∣ A…F∣ a…f) { 0…9∣ A…F∣ a…f∣ _ } [. { 0…9∣ A…F∣ a…f∣ _ }] [(p∣ P) [+∣ -] (0…9) { 0…9∣ _ }] [g…z∣ G…Z]  
 
int-literal::= ...  
 ∣ [-] (0…9) { 0…9 ∣  _ }[g…z∣ G…Z]  
 ∣ [-] (0x∣ 0X) (0…9∣ A…F∣ a…f) { 0…9∣ A…F∣ a…f∣ _ } [g…z∣ G…Z]  
 ∣ [-] (0o∣ 0O) (0…7) { 0…7∣ _ } [g…z∣ G…Z]  
 ∣ [-] (0b∣ 0B) (0…1) { 0…1∣ _ } [g…z∣ G…Z]  
 

Int and float literals followed by an one-letter identifier in the range [g..z∣ G..Z] are extension-only literals.

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