Standard ML of New Jersey

This is the main development repository for SML/NJ. We are currently reworking many components of the system, so it is not very stable. For most uses, we recommend the legacy version of the system.

As of the 2025.3 release, this version is known to work on AMD64 (a.k.a. x86-64) or Arm64 (a.k.a. AArch64) hardware running Linux or macOS.

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Contents

• Dependencies
• Building From Source
• Recompiling the System

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Dependencies

To build the system from sources, you must have several common software systems installed on your machine.[^1]

• C++17 -- You need a C++ compiler, such as clang or gcc, that can handle C++17.

• CMake -- You need Version 3.23 or later of CMake.

• Autoconf -- Parts of the documentation and the ASDL tool require the GNU autoconf tool (version 2.71 or later).

[^1]: We provide installer packages for macOS that avoid these dependencies.

Building From Source

The process for building the system from source code has changed from the legacy system.

1. Set VERSION to the version of SML/NJ that you want to build; for example

   VERSION=2025.3
   

2. Clone the repository

   git clone --depth 1 --branch v$VERSION --recurse-submodules https://github.com/smlnj/smlnj.git
   

   The --depth option limits the download to just one commit (i.e., no history), the --branch option specifies the version of the source code that you are requesting, and the --recurse-submodules option is necessary to fetch the customized version of the LLVM library that we use.

3. build the installation

   cd smlnj
   ./build.sh
   

   Use build.sh -h to see the list of options accepted by the build script.

   As of version 2025.1, the build.sh script will download the pre-compiled boot files if they are not present.

   As before, you can modify the config/targets file to add/remove components from the build.

After successful running of the build.sh script, bin/sml will be the interactive system.

Recompiling the System

The process of recompiling the system from source code is fairly similar to before.

1. Switch to the system directory and run the cmb-make command:

   cd system
   ./cmb-make ../bin/sml
   

   The "../bin/sml" argument is optional; if omitted, then the sml command in the user's PATH will be used. One can also specify a different path to an sml command, when appropriate.

2. Bootstrap the system

   ./makeml
   

3. Install the system

   ./installml -clean -boot
   

   The -boot option is new (and optional); it causes the existing boot files in the root directory (e.g., boot.amd64-unix.tgz) to be replaced by the files generated by the cmb-make command.

4. Rebuild the libraries and tools

   cd ..
   ./build.sh