Okay, so, “reason travis – rilea.” Sounds weird, right? I thought so too. This whole thing started because I needed a solid way to test some ReasonML code I was messing with. I’ve been trying to get into this whole functional programming thing, and Reason seemed like a cool way to do it, especially since it plays nice with JavaScript.
I’d already set up Travis CI for some other projects (you know, the usual JavaScript stuff), and it worked great. Continuous integration, automatic builds, the whole nine yards. Figured it’d be a breeze to get it working with Reason. Boy, was I wrong…at first, at least.
The First Roadblock
The first issue I hit was getting the right environment set up on Travis. It’s not like they have a pre-built “ReasonML” option in their build matrix. So, I had to figure out how to install all the necessary tools – `opam` (the OCaml package manager), `esy` (which is like `npm` but for Reason/OCaml), all that jazz.
I spent a good chunk of time digging through blog posts, forum threads, and even some dusty old mailing list archives. It felt like I was assembling a puzzle from a bunch of different boxes.
Now, “rilea” – that’s the name of the little library I was working on. It’s nothing fancy, just a few helper functions for dealing with some specific data structures I needed. The point was, I needed to make sure my tests for rilea would run correctly on Travis.
This part was actually a bit easier. I’m using `bsb-native`, which is a build system for Reason/OCaml that compiles to native code. That meant I could basically just run my tests like any other command-line program.
Here’s what I ended up doing:
Installed Dependencies: In my Travis config file (usually `.*`), I added steps to install `opam`, `esy`, and any other system-level dependencies I needed.
Fetched My Project: Travis automatically clones your Git repository, so that part was taken care of.
Built the Project: I used `esy` to install my project’s dependencies and build it. This usually involves running `esy install` and then `esy build`.
Ran the Tests: My tests were set up to be run with a simple command, something like `esy dune runtest`. I just added that command to the Travis script.
The “Aha!” Moment
After a bunch of trial and error (and a few face-palm moments), I finally got it working! The key was getting the `opam` and `esy` setup right. Once those were in place, everything else fell into line. I remember seeing that green “build passing” badge on Travis and feeling a huge sense of relief. It’s always satisfying when you wrestle with a problem and finally figure it out.
So, yeah, “reason travis – rilea” – it’s not just a random string of words. It’s a reminder of the little coding adventure I went on. And hopefully, this little write-up might save someone else a bit of time and frustration if they’re trying to do something similar.
