Merlin is an editor service that provides modern IDE features for OCaml.
Emacs and Vim support is provided out-of-the-box. To get editor support with Merlin in
other editors, see this.
If you have a working Opam installation, install Merlin running the following two commands in terminal:
opam install merlin
opam user-setup install
opam-user-setup takes care of configuring Emacs and Vim to make best use of your current install. You can also configure the editor yourself, if you prefer.
Since version 4.0, merlin’s repository has a dedicated branch per version of
OCaml, and the branch name consist of the concatenation of OCaml major version
and minor version. So, for instance, OCaml 4.11.* maps to branch 411.
The main branch is usually synchronized with the branch compatible with the
latest (almost-)released version of OCaml.
Note: if you’re using an older version of OCaml (between 4.02 and 4.10) you will
want to build the 3.4 branch, although it won’t contain the most recent
features.
Compilation
Dependencies: ocamlfind, yojson>=1.6.0, dune>=2.7.
dune build -p dot-merlin-reader,merlin
Note: if you want to work on merlin, you’ll want to avoid the -p merlin, to
build in dev mode, with some extra warnings enabled. In that case you’ll also
need an extra dependency: menhir.
Installation
If you haven’t encountered any errors in the previous step, just run:
dune install -p dot-merlin-reader,merlin
You can pass an explicit prefix to dune, using –prefix. It defaults to
your current opam switch.
To set up Emacs and Vim, you need to instruct them to run the appropriate script when an OCaml file is opened.
In the rest of the document, refers to the directory where Merlin data files are installed.
It will usually be:
printed by the command opam var share, if you used opam
“/share” if you explicitly specified a prefix when configuring Merlin
Vim setup
Makes sure that ocamlmerlin binary can be found in PATH.
The only setup needed is to have the following directory in vim runtime path (append this to your .vimrc):
:set rtp+=/merlin/vim
The default configuration can be seen in:
/merlin/vim/plugin/merlin.vim
After adding merlin to vim runtime path, you will probably want to run :helptags /merlin/vim/doc to register Merlin documentation inside vim.
A more comprehensive documentation can be found on the vim-from-scratch wiki.
Emacs setup
Manual setup
Merlin comes with an emacs library (file: emacs/merlin.el) that implements a minor-mode that is supposed to be used on top of tuareg-mode.
All you need to do is add the following to your .emacs:
(push “/emacs/site-lisp” load-path) ; directory containing merlin.el
(setq merlin-command “/ocamlmerlin”) ; needed only if ocamlmerlin not already in your PATH
(autoload ‘merlin-mode “merlin” “Merlin mode” t)
(add-hook ‘tuareg-mode-hook #’merlin-mode)
(add-hook ‘caml-mode-hook #’merlin-mode)
;; Uncomment these lines if you want to enable integration with the corresponding packages
;; (require ‘merlin-iedit) ; iedit.el editing of occurrences
;; (require ‘merlin-company) ; company.el completion
;; (require ‘merlin-ac) ; auto-complete.el completion
A more comprehensive documentation can be found on the emacs-from-scratch wiki.
Setup via package.el
An installable core merlin package is available via
MELPA, along with further small integration
packages merlin-company, merlin-iedit and merlin-ac which users
can install according to their needs.
Having installed the required packages, the following code in your
emacs startup file is sufficient:
(setq merlin-command “/ocamlmerlin”) ; needed only if ocamlmerlin not already in your PATH
(add-hook ‘tuareg-mode-hook #’merlin-mode)
(add-hook ‘caml-mode-hook #’merlin-mode)
;; Uncomment these lines if you want to enable integration with the corresponding packages
;; (require ‘merlin-iedit) ; iedit.el editing of occurrences
;; (require ‘merlin-company) ; company.el completion
;; (require ‘merlin-ac) ; auto-complete.el completion
Other editors
Merlin only supports Vim and Emacs out-of-the-box. This section describes shortly how to get
merlin-based editor support in other editors.
Visual Studio Code
OCaml has official support for Visual Studio Code through an extension called OCaml Platform available in the Visual Studio Marketplace. Project source is available here.
Note that it requires OCaml-LSP, an official
Language Server Protocol(LSP)
implementation for OCaml based on merlin. It can be installed by running opam install ocaml-lsp-server.
Editors without official support
Consider using OCaml-LSP along with your editor’s
plugin for LSP if there is one.
The wiki also contains pages for:
Acme
Atom
Spacemacs
External contributors have implemented modes for more editors:
ocaml-merlin package for Atom
nuclide for Atom includes Merlin support
Sublime Text 3
Merlin can also be used as a library. Some projects already rely on this:
OCaml LSP – The official OCaml’s Language Server Protocol implementation
If you’re building editor tools, you might also want to use Merlin as a library!
Note, however, that Merlin’s public API is not stable and we don’t guarantee backward-compatibility between releases.
If you’re a Merlin user and depend on our public API, we recommend that you contact us or open an issue.
To use Merlin with a multi-file project, it is necessary to have a .merlin file
unless your project is built using dune.
Note that, in a project using Dune, user-created .merlin files will take precedence over the configuration provided by Dune to Merlin.
Read more in the wiki to learn how to make full use of Merlin in your projects.
Most of the development happens through the github page.
The mailing list welcomes general questions and discussions.
Merlin Labels
Area/Emacs: Related to Emacs
Area/Vim: Related to Vim
Kind/Bug: This issue describes a problem
Kind/Docs: This issue describes a documentation change
Kind/Feature-Request: Solving this issue requires implementing a new feature
Kind/To-discuss: Discussion needed to converge on a solution; often aesthetic. See mailing list for discussion
Status/0-More-info-needed: More information is needed before this issue can be triaged
Status/0-Triage: This issue needs triaging
Status/1-Acknowledged: This issue has been triaged and is being investigated
Status/2-Regression: Known workaround to be applied and tested
Status/3-Fixed-need-test: This issue has been fixed and needs checking
Status/4-Fixed: This issue has been fixed!
Status/5-Awaiting-feedback: This issue requires feedback on a previous fix
You can see current areas of development in our Merlin Project Roadmaps that we keep up to date.
Contributing to Merlin
Merlin needs your help and contributions!
Reporting Issues
When you encounter an issue, please report it with as much detail as possible. A thorough bug report is always appreciated 🙂
Check that our issue database doesn’t already include that problem/suggestion. You can click “subscribe” on issues to follow their progress and updates.
When reporting issues, please include:
steps to reproduce the problem, if possible with some code triggering the issue,
version of the tools you are using: operating system, editor, OCaml.
Try to be as specific as possible:
avoid generic phrasing such as “doesn’t work”, explain what is happening (editor is freezing, you got an error message, the answer is not what was expected, …)
include the content of error messages if there are any.
If it seems relevant, also include information about your development environment:
the Opam version and switch in use,
other toolchains involved (OCaml flavors, cygwin, C compiler, shell, …),
how the editor was setup.
Pull Requests
Found a bug and know how to fix it? Or have a feature you can implement directly? We appreciate pull requests to improve Merlin, and any significant fix should start life as an issue first.
Documentation and wiki
Help is greatly appreciated, the wiki needs love.
If the wiki didn’t cover a topic and you found out the answer, updating the page or pointing out the issue will be very useful for future users.
Discussing with other Merlin users and contributors
Together with commenting on issues with direct feedback and relevant information, we use the mailing list to discuss ideas and current designs/implementations. User input helps us to converge on solutions, especially those for aesthetic and user-oriented topics.
List of Contributors
We would like to thank all people who contributed to Merlin.
Main collaborators:
Frédéric Bour, main developer
Thomas Refis, main developer
Gemma Gordon, project manager
Simon Castellan, contributed the initial Emacs mode
Contributors:
Andrew Noyes
Andrey Popp
Anil Madhavapeddy
Anton Bachin
Armaël Guéneau
Arthur Wendling
Benjamin San Souci
Bernhard Schommer
Bobby Priambodo
Bryan Phelps
Chris Konstad
Christopher Reichert
Christophe Troestler
David Allsopp
Fabian Hemmer
Fourchaux
Gabriel Scherer
Geoff Gole
Gerd Stolpmann
Gregory Nisbet
Jacob Bass
Jacques-Pascal Deplaix
Jah Rehders
Jason Staten
Jochen Bartl
Jordan Walke
Keigo Imai
Leandro Ostera
Leo White
Madroach
Malcolm Matalka
Marc Weber
Mario Rodas
Markus Mottl
Milo Davis
Nick Borden
Nicolás Ojeda Bar
Olivier Andrieu
Philipp Haselwarter
Pierre Chambart
Raman Varabets
Raphaël Proust
Ronan Le Hy (2)
Rudi Grinberg
Steve Purcell
Syohei Yoshida
“tddsg”
Tomasz Kołodziejski
Velichko Vsevolod
Vincent / Twinside
Xavier Guérin
Ximin Luo
Yotam Barnoy
Sponsoring and donations
We would like to thank Jane Street for sponsoring and OCaml Labs for providing support and management.
And many thanks to our Bountysource backers.
Other acknowledgements
Distribution and configuration:
Louis Gesbert, opam-user-setup, out-of-the-box setup for Vim and Emacs
Edgar Aroutinian, ocaml-starterkit, collection of tools for beginners in OCaml
Support for other editors:
Luc Rocher, Sublime Text 3
Pieter Goetschalckx, ocaml-merlin package for Atom
various contributors, nuclide package for Atom
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