NOTE

this documentation is for the current stable version 1.1. If you are already testing the 1.2.0 beta, head straight to the updated documentation

Learn to use OPAM in 2 minutes

This short tutorial covers the very basic use cases to get you started with OPAM. A more lengthy introduction can be found in the Advanced Usage guide.

Browsing available packages

The following commands will enable you to obtain information on available packages:

opam list -a            # List all available packages
opam search QUERY       # List packages with QUERY in their name or description
opam info PACKAGE       # Display information about PACKAGE

Another option to obtain information on packages is to browse the Packages section of the OPAM website.

Installing a package

The two commands you will probably use the most with OPAM are:

opam update             # Update the packages database
opam install PACKAGE    # Download, build and install the latest version of PACKAGE

Upgrading your installed packages

You may want to regularly issue these commands to keep your packages up-to-date:

opam update             # Update the packages database
opam upgrade            # Re-install packages that were updated since last upgrade

Do more with OPAM

To learn how to use more advanced features of OPAM (version pinning, multiple repositories, multiple compilers...), move on to the Advanced Usage guide.