OPAM-INSTALL(1)

NAME

opam-install - Install a list of packages.

SYNOPSIS

opam install [OPTION]… [PACKAGES]…

DESCRIPTION

This command installs one or more packages inside the currently selected switch (see opam switch). Once installed, you can remove packages with opam remove, upgrade them with opam upgrade, and list them with opam list. See opam pin as well to manage package versions, reroute existing packages or add packages that are not defined in the repositories.

All required dependencies of the selected packages will be installed first. Any already installed packages having dependencies, or optional dependencies to the changed packages will be recompiled. The proposed solution may also imply removing incompatible or conflicting packages.

If paths are provided as argument instead of packages, they are assumed to point to either project source directories containing one or more package definitions (opam files), or directly to opam files. Then the corresponding packages will be pinned to their local directory and installed (unless --deps-only was specified).

ARGUMENTS

PACKAGES
    List of package names, with an optional version or constraint, e.g `pkg', `pkg.1.0' or `pkg>=0.5' ; or files or directory names containing package description, with explicit directory (e.g. `./foo.opam' or `.')

OPTIONS

--assume-built
    For use on locally-pinned packages: assume they have already been correctly built, and only run their installation instructions, directly from their source directory. This skips the build instructions and can be useful to install packages that are being worked on. Implies --inplace-build. No locally-pinned packages will be skipped.

--check
    Exit with 0 if all the dependencies of PACKAGES are already installed. If not, output the names of the missing dependencies to stdout, and exits with 1.

--depext-only
    Resolves the package installation normally, but only installs the required system dependencies, without affecting the opam switch state or installing opam packages.

--deps-only
    Install all its dependencies, but don't actually install the package.

--destdir=DIR
    Copy the files installed by the given package within the current opam switch below the prefix DIR, respecting their hierarchy, after installation. Caution, calling this can overwrite, but never remove files, even if they were installed by a previous use of --destdir, e.g. on a previous version of the same package. See opam remove --destdir to revert.

--download-only
    Fetch the sources of the packages, but don't build or install anything.

--formula=FORMULA (absent=[])
    Experimental. Specify a dependency formula to be verified by the solution, in addition to the switch invariant. The format is the same as for expressing dependencies in package definition files, e.g. '"foo" {>= "1.1"}'

--ignore-conflicts
    Used with --deps-only, ignores conflicts of given package

--recursive
    Allow recursive lookups of *.opam files. Cf. --subpath also.

--restore
    Attempt to restore packages that were marked for installation but have been removed due to errors

--set-root
    Mark given packages as installed roots. This is the default for newly manually-installed packages.

--subpath=PATH
    *.opam files are retrieved from the given sub directory instead of top directory. Sources are then taken from the targeted sub directory, internally only this subdirectory is copied/fetched. It can be combined with --recursive to have a recursive lookup on the subpath.

--unset-root
    Mark given packages as "installed automatically".

PACKAGE BUILD OPTIONS

--assume-depexts
    Skip the installation step for any missing system packages, and attempt to proceed with compilation of the opam packages anyway. If the installation is successful, opam won't prompt again about these system packages. Only meaningful if external dependency handling is enabled.

-b, --keep-build-dir
    Keep the build directories after compiling packages. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMKEEPBUILDDIR to "true".

--build-doc
    Removed in 2.1, use --with-doc instead.

--build-test
    Removed in 2.1, use --with-test instead.

-d, --with-doc
    Build the package documentation. This only affects packages listed on the command-line. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMWITHDOC (or the deprecated $OPAMBUILDDOC) to "true".

--dry-run
    Simulate the command, but don't actually perform any changes. This also can be set with environment variable $OPAMDEBUG.

--fake
    This option registers the actions into the opam database, without actually performing them. WARNING: This option is dangerous and likely to break your opam environment. You probably want --dry-run. You've been warned.

--ignore-constraints-on[=PACKAGES] (default=)
    Forces opam to ignore version constraints on all dependencies to the listed packages. This can be used to test compatibility, but expect builds to break when using this. Note that availability of the packages as well as version constraints on optional dependencies and conflicts are unaffected. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMIGNORECONSTRAINTS.

--inplace-build
    When compiling a package which has its source bound to a local directory, process the build and install actions directly in that directory, rather than in a clean copy handled by opam. This only affects packages that are explicitly listed on the command-line. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMINPLACEBUILD to "true".

-j JOBS, --jobs=JOBS
    Set the maximal number of concurrent jobs to use. The default value is calculated from the number of cores. You can also set it using the $OPAMJOBS environment variable.

--lock-suffix=SUFFIX (absent=locked)
    Set locked files suffix to SUFFIX.

--locked
    In commands that use opam files found from pinned sources, if a variant of the file with an added .locked extension is found (e.g. foo.opam.locked besides foo.opam), that will be used instead. This is typically useful to offer a more specific set of dependencies and reproduce similar build contexts, hence the name. The lockoption can be used to generate such files, based on the versions of the dependencies currently installed on the host. This is equivalent to setting the $OPAMLOCKED environment variable. Note that this option doesn't generally affect already pinned packages.

-m MAKE, --make=MAKE
    Removed in 2.1, use opam config set[-global] make MAKE instead.

--no-checksums
    Do not verify the checksum of downloaded archives.This is equivalent to setting $OPAMNOCHECKSUMS to "true".

--no-depexts
    Temporarily disables handling of external dependencies. This can be used if a package is not available on your system package manager, but you installed the required dependency by hand. Implies --assume-depexts, and stores the exceptions upon success as well.

--require-checksums
    Reject the installation of packages that don't provide a checksum forthe upstream archives. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMREQUIRECHECKSUMS to "true".

--reuse-build-dir
    Reuse existing build directories (kept by using --keep-build-dir), instead of compiling from a fresh clone of the source. This can be faster, but also lead to failures if the build systems of the packages don't handle upgrades of dependencies well. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMREUSEBUILDDIR to "true".

--show-actions
    Call the solver and display the actions. Don't perform any changes. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMSHOW.

--skip-updates
    When running an install, upgrade or reinstall on source-pinned packages, they are normally updated from their origin first. This flag disables that behaviour and will keep them to their version in cache. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMSKIPUPDATE.

-t, --with-test
    Build and run the package unit-tests. This only affects packages listed on the command-line. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMWITHTEST (or the deprecated $OPAMBUILDTEST) to "true".

--unlock-base
    Removed in 2.1, use --update-invariant instead.

--update-invariant
    Allow changes to the packages set as switch base (typically, the main compiler). Use with caution. This is equivalent to setting the $OPAMUNLOCKBASE environment variable

--verbose-on=PACKAGES
    Be more verbose on specific packages.This is equivalent to setting $OPAMVERBOSE.

--with-dev-setup
    Include development tools only dependencies.

COMMON OPTIONS

These options are common to all commands.

--best-effort
    Don't fail if all requested packages can't be installed: try to install as many as possible. Note that not all external solvers may support this option (recent versions of aspcud or mccs should). This is equivalent to setting $OPAMBESTEFFORT environment variable.

--cli=MAJOR.MINOR (absent=2.5)
    Use the command-line interface syntax and semantics of MAJOR.MINOR. Intended for any persistent use of opam (scripts, blog posts, etc.), any version of opam in the same MAJOR series will behave as for the specified MINOR release. The flag was not available in opam 2.0, so to select the 2.0 CLI, set the OPAMCLI environment variable to 2.0 instead of using this parameter.

--color=WHEN
    Colorize the output. WHEN must be one of always, never or auto.

--confirm-level=LEVEL
    Confirmation level, LEVEL must be one of ask, no, yes or unsafe-yes. Can be specified more than once. If --yes or --no are also given, the value of the last --confirm-level is taken into account. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL`.

--criteria=CRITERIA
    Specify user preferences for dependency solving for this run. Overrides $OPAMCRITERIA, $OPAMFIXUPCRITERIA and $OPAMUPGRADECRITERIA. For details on the supported language, and the external solvers available, see http://opam.ocaml.org/doc/External_solvers.html. A general guide to using solver preferences can be found at http://www.dicosmo.org/Articles/usercriteria.pdf.

--cudf=FILENAME
    Debug option: Save the CUDF requests sent to the solver to FILENAME-<n>.cudf where <n> is the n-th call to the solver during the opam run.

--debug
    Print debug message to stderr. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMDEBUG to "true".

--debug-level=LEVEL
    Like --debug, but allows specifying the debug level (--debug sets it to 1). Equivalent to setting $OPAMDEBUG to a positive integer.

--git-version
    Print the git version of opam, if set (i.e. you are using a development version), and exit.

--help[=FMT] (default=auto)
    Show this help in format FMT. The value FMT must be one of auto, pager, groff or plain. With auto, the format is pager or plain whenever the TERM env var is dumb or undefined.

--ignore-pin-depends
    Ignore extra pins required by packages that get pinned, either manually through opam pin or through opam install DIR. This is equivalent to setting IGNOREPINDEPENDS=true.

--json=FILENAME
    Save the results of the opam run in a computer-readable file. If the filename contains the character `%', it will be replaced by an index that doesn't overwrite an existing file. Similar to setting the $OPAMJSON variable.

--no
    Answer no to all opam yes/no questions without prompting. See also --confirm-level. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMNO to "true".

--no-aspcud
    Removed in 2.1.

--no-auto-upgrade
    When configuring or updating a repository that is written for an earlier opam version (1.2), opam internally converts it to the current format. This disables this behaviour. Note that repositories should define their format version in a 'repo' file at their root, or they will be assumed to be in the older format. It is, in any case, preferable to upgrade the repositories manually using opam admin upgrade [--mirror URL] when possible.

--no-self-upgrade
    Opam will replace itself with a newer binary found at OPAMROOT/opam if present. This disables this behaviour.

-q, --quiet
    Disables --verbose.

--root=ROOT
    Use ROOT as the current root path. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMROOT to ROOT.

--safe, --readonly
    Make sure nothing will be automatically updated or rewritten. Useful for calling from completion scripts, for example. Will fail whenever such an operation is needed ; also avoids waiting for locks, skips interactive questions and overrides the $OPAMDEBUG variable. This is equivalent to set environment variable $OPAMSAFE.

--solver=CMD
    Specify the CUDF solver to use for resolving package installation problems. This is either a predefined solver (this version of opam supports builtin-mccs+lp(), builtin-mccs+glpk, builtin-dummy-z3-solver, builtin-0install, aspcud, mccs, aspcud-old, packup), or a custom command that should contain the variables %{input}%, %{output}%, %{criteria}%, and optionally %{timeout}%. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMEXTERNALSOLVER.

--strict
    Fail whenever an error is found in a package definition or a configuration file. The default is to continue silently if possible.

--switch=SWITCH
    Use SWITCH as the current compiler switch. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMSWITCH to SWITCH.

--use-internal-solver
    Disable any external solver, and use the built-in one (this requires that opam has been compiled with a built-in solver). This is equivalent to setting $OPAMNOASPCUD or $OPAMUSEINTERNALSOLVER.

-v, --verbose
    Be more verbose. One -v shows all package commands, repeat to also display commands called internally (e.g. tar, curl, patch etc.) Repeating n times is equivalent to setting $OPAMVERBOSE to "n".

--version
    Show version information.

-w, --working-dir
    Whenever updating packages that are bound to a local, version-controlled directory, update to the current working state of their source instead of the last committed state, or the ref they are pointing to. As source directory is copied as it is, if it isn't clean it may result on a opam build failure. This only affects packages explicitly listed on the command-line. It can also be set with $OPAMWORKINGDIR.

-y, --yes
    Answer yes to all opam yes/no questions without prompting. See also --confirm-level. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMYES to "true".

ENVIRONMENT

Opam makes use of the environment variables listed here. Boolean variables should be set to "0", "no", "false" or the empty string to disable, "1", "yes" or "true" to enable.

OPAMALLPARENS surround all filters with parenthesis.

OPAMASSUMEDEPEXTS see option `--assume-depexts'.

OPAMAUTOANSWER internal use only.

OPAMAUTOREMOVE see remove option `--auto-remove'.

OPAMBESTEFFORT see option `--best-effort'.

OPAMBESTEFFORTPREFIXCRITERIA sets the string that must be prepended to the criteria when the `--best-effort' option is set, and is expected to maximise the `opam-query' property in the solution.

OPAMBUILDDOC Removed in 2.1.

OPAMBUILDTEST Removed in 2.1.

OPAMCLI see option `--cli'.

OPAMCOLOR when set to always or never, sets a default value for the `--color' option.

OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL see option `--confirm-level`. OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL has priority over OPAMYES and OPAMNO.

OPAMCRITERIA specifies user preferences for dependency solving. The default value depends on the solver version, use `config report' to know the current setting. See also option --criteria.

OPAMCUDFFILE save the cudf graph to file-actions-explicit.dot.

OPAMCUDFTRIM controls the filtering of unrelated packages during CUDF preprocessing.

OPAMCURL can be used to select a given 'curl' program. See OPAMFETCH for more options.

OPAMDEBUG see options `--debug' and `--debug-level'.

OPAMDEBUGSECTIONS if set, limits debug messages to the space-separated list of sections. Sections can optionally have a specific debug level (for example, CLIENT:2 or CLIENT CUDF:2), but otherwise use `--debug-level'.

OPAMDIGDEPTH defines how aggressive the lookup for conflicts during CUDF preprocessing is.

OPAMDOWNLOADJOBS sets the maximum number of simultaneous downloads.

OPAMDROPWORKINGDIR overrides packages previously updated with --working-dir on update. Without this variable set, opam would keep them unchanged unless explicitly named on the command-line.

OPAMDRYRUN see option `--dry-run'.

OPAMEDITOR sets the editor to use for opam file editing, overrides $EDITOR and $VISUAL.

OPAMERRLOGLEN sets the number of log lines printed when a sub-process fails. 0 to print all.

OPAMEXTERNALSOLVER see option `--solver'.

OPAMFAKE see option `--fake'.

OPAMFETCH specifies how to download files: either `wget', `curl' or a custom command where variables %{url}%, %{out}%, %{retry}%, %{compress}% and %{checksum}% will be replaced. Overrides the 'download-command' value from the main config file.

OPAMFIXUPCRITERIA same as OPAMUPGRADECRITERIA, but specific to fixup and reinstall.

OPAMIGNORECONSTRAINTS see install option `--ignore-constraints-on'.

OPAMIGNOREPINDEPENDS see option `--ignore-pin-depends'.

OPAMINPLACEBUILD see option `--inplace-build'.

OPAMJOBS sets the maximum number of parallel workers to run.

OPAMJSON log json output to the given file (use character `%' to index the files).

OPAMKEEPBUILDDIR see install option `--keep-build-dir'.

OPAMKEEPLOGS tells opam to not remove some temporary command logs and some backups. This skips some finalisers and may also help to get more reliable backtraces.

OPAMLOCKED combination of `--locked' and `--lock-suffix' options.

OPAMLOGS logdir sets log directory, default is a temporary directory in /tmp

OPAMMAKECMD set the system make command to use.

OPAMMERGEOUT merge process outputs, stderr on stdout.

OPAMNO answer no to any question asked, see options `--no` and `--confirm-level`. OPAMNO is ignored if either OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL or OPAMYES is set.

OPAMNOAGGREGATE with `opam admin check', don't aggregate packages.

OPAMNOASPCUD Deprecated.

OPAMNOAUTOUPGRADE disables automatic internal upgrade of repositories in an earlier format to the current one, on 'update' or 'init'.

OPAMNOCHECKSUMS enables option --no-checksums when available.

OPAMNODEPEXTS disables system dependencies handling, see option `--no-depexts'.

OPAMNOENVNOTICE Internal.

OPAMNOSELFUPGRADE see option `--no-self-upgrade'

OPAMPINKINDAUTO sets whether version control systems should be detected when pinning to a local path. Enabled by default since 1.3.0.

OPAMPRECISETRACKING fine grain tracking of directories.

OPAMPREPRO set this to false to disable CUDF preprocessing. Less efficient, but might help debugging solver issue.

OPAMREPOSITORYTARRING internally store the repositories as tar.gz files. This can be much faster on filesystems that don't cope well with scanning large trees but have good caching in /tmp. However this is slower in the general case.

OPAMREQUIRECHECKSUMS Enables option `--require-checksums' when available (e.g. for `opam install').

OPAMRETRIES sets the number of tries before failing downloads.

OPAMREUSEBUILDDIR see option `--reuse-build-dir'.

OPAMROOT see option `--root'. This is automatically set by `opam env --root=DIR --set-root'.

OPAMROOTISOK don't complain when running as root.

OPAMSAFE see option `--safe'.

OPAMSHOW see option `--show'.

OPAMSKIPUPDATE see option `--skip-updates'.

OPAMSKIPVERSIONCHECKS bypasses some version checks. Unsafe, for compatibility testing only.

OPAMSOLVERALLOWSUBOPTIMAL (default `true') allows some solvers to still return a solution when they reach timeout; while the solution remains assured to be consistent, there is no guarantee in this case that it fits the expected optimisation criteria. If `true', opam willcontinue with a warning, if `false' a timeout is an error. Currently only the builtin-z3 backend handles this degraded case.

OPAMSOLVERTIMEOUT change the time allowance of the solver. Default is 60.0, set to 0 for unlimited. Note that all solvers may not support this option.

OPAMSOLVERTOLERANCE changes the tolerance towards the solver choosing an unoptimized solution (i.e. might pull outdated packages). Typical values range from 0.0 (best solution known to the solver) to 1.0 (unoptimized solution). Default is 0.0. This option is useful in case the solver can't find a solution in a reasonable time (see $OPAMSOLVERTIMEOUT). Note that all solvers may not support this option.

OPAMSTATS Removed in 2.4.

OPAMSTATUSLINE display a dynamic status line showing what's currently going on on the terminal. (one of one of always, never or auto)

OPAMSTRICT fail on inconsistencies (file reading, switch import, etc.).

OPAMSWITCH see option `--switch'. Automatically set by `opam env --switch=SWITCH --set-switch'.

OPAMUNLOCKBASE see install option `--unlock-base'.

OPAMUPGRADECRITERIA specifies user preferences for dependency solving when performing an upgrade. Overrides OPAMCRITERIA in upgrades if both are set. See also option --criteria.

OPAMUSEINTERNALSOLVER see option `--use-internal-solver'.

OPAMUSEOPENSSL Removed in 2.2.

OPAMUTF8 use UTF8 characters in output (one of one of always, never or auto). By default `auto', which is determined from the locale).

OPAMUTF8MSGS use extended UTF8 characters (camels) in opam messages. Implies OPAMUTF8. This is set by default on macOS only.

OPAMVALIDATIONHOOK if set, uses the `%{hook%}' command to validate an opam repository update.

OPAMVERBOSE see option `--verbose'.

OPAMVERBOSEON see option --verbose-on

OPAMVERSIONLAGPOWER do not use.

OPAMWITHDEVSETUP see install option `--with-dev-setup'.

OPAMWITHDOC see install option `--with-doc'.

OPAMWITHTEST see install option `--with-test.

OPAMWORKINGDIR see option `--working-dir'.

OPAMYES see options `--yes' and `--confirm-level`. OPAMYES has priority over OPAMNO and is ignored if OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL is set.

OPAMVAR_var overrides the contents of the variable var when substituting `%{var}%` strings in `opam` files.

OPAMVAR_package_var overrides the contents of the variable package:var when substituting `%{package:var}%` strings in `opam` files.

CLI VERSION

All scripts and programmatic invocations of opam should use `--cli' in order to ensure that they work seamlessly with future versions of the opam client. Additionally, blog posts or other documentation can benefit, as it prevents information from becoming stale.

Although opam only supports roots (~/.opam/) for the current version, it does provide backwards compatibility for its command-line interface.

Since CLI version support was only added in opam 2.1, use OPAMCLI to select 2.0 support (as opam 2.0 will just ignore it), and `--cli=2.1' for 2.1 (or later) versions, since an environment variable controlling the parsing of syntax is brittle. To this end, opam displays a warning if OPAMCLI specifies a valid version other than 2.0, and also if `--cli=2.0' is specified.

The command-line version is selected by using the `--cli' option or the OPAMCLI environment variable. `--cli' may be specified morethan once, where the last instance takes precedence. OPAMCLI is only inspected if `--cli' is not given.

EXIT STATUS

As an exception to the following, the `exec' command returns 127 if the command was not found or couldn't be executed, and the command's exit value otherwise.

0   Success, or true for boolean queries.

1   False. Returned when a boolean return value is expected, e.g. when running with --check, or for queries like opam lint.

2   Bad command-line arguments, or command-line arguments pointing to an invalid context (e.g. file not following the expected format).

5   Not found. You requested something (package, version, repository, etc.) that couldn't be found.

10  Aborted. The operation required confirmation, which wasn't given.

15  Could not acquire the locks required for the operation.

20  There is no solution to the user request. This can be caused by asking to install two incompatible packages, for example.

30  Error in package definition, or other metadata files. Using --strict raises this error more often.

31  Package script error. Some package operations were unsuccessful. This may be an error in the packages or an incompatibility with your system. This can be a partial error.

40  Sync error. Could not fetch some remotes from the network. This can be a partial error.

50  Configuration error. Opam or system configuration doesn't allow operation, and needs fixing.

60  Solver failure. The solver failed to return a sound answer. It can be due to a broken external solver, or an error in solver configuration.

99  Internal error. Something went wrong, likely due to a bug in opam itself.

130 User interrupt. SIGINT was received, generally due to the user pressing Ctrl-C.

0   on success.

123 on indiscriminate errors reported on standard error.

124 on command line parsing errors.

125 on unexpected internal errors (bugs).

FURTHER DOCUMENTATION

See https://opam.ocaml.org/doc.

AUTHORS

David Allsopp <david@tarides.com>

Vincent Bernardoff <vb@luminar.eu.org>

Raja Boujbel <raja.boujbel@ocamlpro.com>

Kate Deplaix <kit-ty-kate@outlook.com>

Roberto Di Cosmo <roberto@dicosmo.org>

Thomas Gazagnaire <thomas@gazagnaire.org>

Louis Gesbert <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com>

Fabrice Le Fessant <Fabrice.Le_fessant@inria.fr>

Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>

Guillem Rieu <guillem.rieu@ocamlpro.com>

Ralf Treinen <ralf.treinen@pps.jussieu.fr>

Frederic Tuong <tuong@users.gforge.inria.fr>

SEE ALSO

opam(1)

BUGS

Check bug reports at https://github.com/ocaml/opam/issues.