lowcaml

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Lowcaml is an experimental OCaml-to-C compiler. It generates C files as well as the corresponding OCaml bindings. Its primary goal is writing typesafe SIMD code, but it can also be used to accelerate simple OCaml code and create bindings to C libraries.

The following features are supported:

• built-in OCaml types (int, int32, int64, unit, bool, char, string, bytes and Bigarray.Array1.t)
• a subset of the OCaml standard library, mostly functions on the above types that don't allocate
• top-level functions
• for and while loops
• if-else expressions
• let bindings (currently only directly below functions)
• externals, which call external C functions directly
• calling other lowcaml functions
• some libc types
• stack-allocated int (like OCaml's ref), currently called int Mut.t
• generating #include using [@@@include "header"]

The following features are not supported, but may be supported in the future:

• C array, struct, enum, union, typedef or bindings to types from external libraries
• static (non-exported) C functions
• stack-allocated values
• OCaml variants, records, tuples
• ref and array values
• bytecode stubs
• bounds checks
• sub-modules
• named and optional parameters
• match expressions
• top-level constants
• string literals
• a pure OCaml implementation of Lowcaml_stdlib (for jsoo support)

The following features are not supported, and are out of scope for the project:

• allocating from lowcaml or calling into the OCaml runtime: All functions generated by lowcaml are marked [@@noalloc]
• closures, partial application, exceptions or effects
• cross-platform SIMD bindings (but could be implemented as a third-party library)
• complete libc bindings
• 32-bit platforms
• any particular support for shared memory parallelism

A subset of the OCaml stdlib, as well as some libc and SIMD methods are exposed. You can browse the interface (wip): lowcaml_stdlib.mli.

Currently, only OCaml 5.0 is supported.

Usage

Dune users can use this library by vendoring it in their project. opam users can run dune install which will install lowcaml.exe in their current opam switch.

You will need a custom rule that invokes lowcaml.exe and a library with C stubs. In the following, my_stubs_lowcaml.ml is the input while lstubs.ml and cstubs.c are generated files. Dune users can use something similar to this:

(rule
 (targets lstubs.ml cstubs.c)
 (deps my_stubs_lowcaml.ml)
 (action (run lowcaml.exe -source my_stubs_lowcaml.ml -o-ml lstubs.ml -o-c cstubs.c)))

(library
 (name lstubs)
 (modules lstubs)
 (foreign_stubs
  (language c)
  (names cstubs)
  (flags
   :standard
   -Wall -Wpedantic -Wconversion -Werror
   -mavx2 ; Note: for SIMD instructions, requires x86_64 with AVX2
   )))

Merlin is supported by defining a dummy library. Dune users can use the following library stanza and run dune build lowcaml_test_dummy.cma.

(library
 (name lowcaml_merlin_dummy)
 (modules my_stubs_lowcaml)
 (libraries lowcaml.stdlib)
 (flags :standard -nopervasives -open Lowcaml_stdlib))

Examples

An implementation of Sieve of Eratosthenes:

let sieve b =
  let len = Bytes.length b in
  for i = 2 to len - 1 do
    if Bytes.get_uint8 b i = 0 then (
      let j = Mut.int (2 * i) in
      while !j < len do
        Bytes.set_uint8 b !j 1;
        j := !j + i;
      done
    )
  done

// generated by lowcaml
void sieve(const value b)
{
    const int64_t len = (int64_t)caml_string_length(b);
    const int64_t upto = (len-1);
    for(int64_t i = 2; (i<=upto); (i+=1))
    {
        if((*(uint8_t*)&Byte(b, i)==0))
        {
            int64_t j = (2*i);
            while((j<len))
            {
                (*(uint8_t*)&Byte(b, j)=(uint8_t)1);
                (j=(j+i));
            }
        }
    }
}

A SIMD-based fill32 for Bytes.t:

let simd_fill32 b x =
  let i = Mut.int 0 in
  let len = Bytes.length b in
  let x = SIMD._mm256_set1_epi32 x in
  while !i < len do
    SIMD._mm256_storeu_si256 (Ptr.offset (Ptr.bytes b) !i) x;
    i := !i + 32;
  done

// generated by lowcaml
void simd_fill32(const value b, const int32_t x)
{
    int64_t i = 0;
    const int64_t len = (int64_t)caml_string_length(b);
    const __m256i x_1 = _mm256_set1_epi32(x);
    while((i<len))
    {
        _mm256_storeu_si256((void*)((uint8_t*)(void*)Bytes_val(b)+i), x_1);
        (i=(i+32));
    }
}

See also tests/test_lowcaml.ml. This section will be expanded.

Technical details

Lowcaml generates C code from the typedtree representation in the OCaml compiler. Since typedtree is not a public API and can change significantly between OCaml versions, we suggest checking the output into your code repository. Lowcaml tries to generate readable C code, preserving variable names and proper indentation.

Lowcaml is somewhat more type-safe than writing C code directly:

• all casts are explicit, thanks to OCaml's stricter type system
• bindings to the generated C code are generated
• externals generate a C declaration, which is checked by the C compiler to match the header

Lowcaml relies on integer overflow and aliasing being defined behaviour, as enabled by the -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv flags. These flags are automatically included by the OCaml compiler for all C stubs.

OCaml types are mapped to C types in the following places:

• let bindings (as the type that appears in the variable C declaration)
• parameters and return types of OCaml functions (which become C functions)
• parameters and return types of OCaml externals (which become C function declarations)

The mapping is as follows:

All C types, except for Lowcaml_stdlib.Mut.t, are marked as const.

Related projects

• "Generating low-level code from a higher-level language", "Mutable Variables and Reference Types: L-values demystified and deprecated", a major inspiration for this project. Lowcaml's Mut.t is uses this compilation scheme.
• ocaml-ctypes, while lowcaml can be used to write some bindings to C libraries, its primary goal is writing SIMD code. ocaml-ctypes is a more complete and stable project for writing bindings.
• KaRaMeL, an F*-to-C compiler. More low-level than lowcaml, with a focus on correctness proofs.
• OCaml inline assembly, a (rejected) pull request to the OCaml with support for inline assembly.