How to use the first class module in rescript?

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As the title, The offical documentation seems does not include the first class module.

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Actually, this page does not document first-class modules either. There might be an open GH issue about adding documentation for those.

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In general, when documentation for an advanced feature is missing, I usually try to find a documentation for OCaml, and then translate the OCaml examples to ReScript using rescript format -stdin .ml.

For example, in case of first class modules, I found this document. And to convert a code snipped from there I can do this:

echo "let three = (module Three : X_int)" | npx rescript format -stdin .ml

Output:

let three = module(Three: X_int)
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Normally, modules (module M = ...) and values (let x = ...) live on different “layers” of the language. First-class modules allow you to convert a module to a value (i.e. make it “first class”) and pass it around like any other value.

Suppose you have a module that looks like this:

module Int = {
  type t = int
  let cmp = (a: t, b: t) => compare(a, b)
}

FCMs need to be annotated with a type. Once we define a module type, we can use module() to turn our Int module into a FCM.

module type Comparable = {
  type t
  let cmp: (t, t) => int
}
let int_fcm: module(Comparable with type t = int) = module(Int)

You can also alias a module type to make the annotations more readable:

type comparable<'a> = module(Comparable with type t = 'a)
let int_fcm: comparable<int> = module(Int)

We can “unpack” a FCM and use it as a regular module again:

module Int = unpack(int_fcm)

It gets a bit trickier if you want to use the FCM in a function. We have to use “locally abstract types,” which basically just means defining a new type as if it was a function argument.

let f = (type t, a, b, m: comparable<t>) => {
  module M = unpack(m)
  M.cmp(a, b)
}

Why would you use a first-class module? Most of the time, you’re better off just using a record. FCMs compile to JavaScript objects just like records do, but their typing rules are much more complicated. You only really need to use FCMs if you’re creating new types dynamically. (This is the reason why the Belt library uses FCMs.) Unless you’re a library author, or you’re relying on some very advanced type tricks, then it’s unlikely you’ll need to deal with FCMs a lot. Most of the type, you’ll just have to use module() to create one and pass it to a library’s function.

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@johnj because i want to create a data type which is similar to Belt.MutableMap. Another words, the stdlib was written by ocaml but compiled to js eventually, why not to write the stdlib by rescript?

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The Belt stdlib was written before ReScript syntax existed. As far as I know, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be implemented in ReScript now. I’m not on the dev team, but I assume that changing it just isn’t high on their priorities.

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Great article about first class modules

[EDIT] here a simple exemple

[EDIT] another

[EDIT] one more very interesting one which just save my day ! (from a headache)

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