More feature-rich than the standard library

Base adds significant functionality to workhorse modules in the standard library: Array, Buffer, Bytes, Char, Hashtbl, Int32, Int64, Lazy, List, Map, Nativeint, Printf, Random, Set, String, Sys, and Uchar, and adds modules like Container to provide a consistent interface across container-like data structures (arrays, lists, strings).

Base’s companion library, Stdio, provides I/O functions.

The next edition of Real World OCaml will be based on Base and Stdio.

A safer and more consistent design

Base aims to present a safer set of idioms than the standard library. Some examples:

• Functions that return explicit error-aware types like Option.t and Result.t are preferred over exception-throwing functions. Functions that routinely throw exceptions generally have _exn at the end of their name, so they’re easier to identify.

• Base discourages the use of OCaml’s polymorphic comparison functions, which are inconsistent and error prone. Polymorphic comparison is hidden by default, and has to be explicitly referenced from the Poly module.

Base also aims for consistency, using the same idioms throughout, so that functions have consistent names and types everywhere you go. Base also organizes its code into modules, so there’s a module for every basic type in the library, making it easier to find the functionality you need.

Support for syntax extensions that simplify common patterns

Base doesn’t require ppx syntax extensions, but it’s designed to work seamlessly with them. If you install and use ppx_jane along with Base, you’ll get ppx code generators that implement:

• reliable and customizable comparison of OCaml values;

• reliable and customizable hash of OCaml values; and

• conversions between OCaml values and s-expressions.

For instance to get a type that can be serialized to and from s-expressions, and that supports comparison and hashing, you need only write:

type t = { id : int; aliases : Set.M(String).t }
[@@deriving sexp, compare, hash]

A note on stability

Base hasn’t yet reached it’s 1.0 release, but we hope to get there in the next six months. One of our reasons for delaying the 1.0 release is that we want to be able to start prioritizing stability of the APIs much higher than we have been before declaring that it’s at 1.0. You can see some of the remaining changes we want to make before declaring 1.0 on our Roadmap.

As of our 0.11 release, we’ve hit a majority of the issues on our roadmap, and don’t expect major changes. But if stability is your top priority, you might want to wait for 1.0 before adopting Base.

Base

Minimal stdlib replacement. Portable and lightweight and intended to be highly stable.

Core_kernel

Extension of Base. More fully featured, with more code and dependencies, and APIs that evolve more quickly. Portable, and works on Javascript. Core_kernel’s API Docs

Core

Core_kernel extended with UNIX APIs. See the page for Core