OCaml
lastmod 2025-08-19created 2025-08-191 edits
OCaml (Objective Caml, /oʊˈkæməl/) is the main implementation of the Caml programming language, a dialect of the ML language, written in 1996 by Xavier Leroy, Jérôme Vouillon, Damien Doligez, Didier Rémy, and others. OCaml is an open-source project led, managed, and maintained by INRIA.
OCaml adds object-oriented constructs to the core of the Caml language.
OCaml's features include a static type system, type inference, parametric polymorphism, pattern matching, functors, exception handling, and garbage collection.
The Ocaml toolset includes an interactive top level interpreter, a bytecode compiler, an optimizing compiler, and more. It also includes many standard libraries and has a solid module system and object-oriented programming constructs applicable to large software, so Ocaml can be quite useful in cases where applications would otherwise be written in languages such as Python or Perl.
Ocaml succeeded Caml Light. CAML is an acronym for Categorical Abstract Machine Language, but Ocaml removed the abstract machine.