OCaml TCP Chatroom Server

Simple chat application between CLI client users in OCaml (goated language). Leverages functional programming paradigms to deal with concurrent requests and scaling.

Features

This repository allows you to build executables for both a server and a client that connects. Multiple clients can connect to one server instance. Messages are then synced acrossed the clients.

• Server and Client works on any client instance connected to localhost
• Server and Client works on the internet given correct IP configurations using environment variables
• Username Customization
• Simulating concurrency with use of promises and monads

Usage

This chat application has only been tested on UNIX-based systems. There is no guarantee things will work if you are not on UNIX. If you are on Windows, consider using WSL. By default, the application only works on localhost.

Prerequisite tools installation required:

1. OCaml
2. OPAM (OCaml Project Manager)
3. Dune

If you only have OPAM and not dune, you can run the following to install Dune & associated project packages.

$ opam install dune ocaml lwt logs logs-fmt

Build the application on your computer

First, clone the repo and open the root using Bash or Bash-like shells.

Use Dune to build the project (required libraries should be configured in the Dune files already).

$ dune build

Dune should then build required binaries for you to access the chat application functionalities.

To boot up a server for hosting the chat application:

$ ./_build/default/bin/server.exe

The server will accept clients from any address.

To boot up a client to access given server:

$ ./_build/default/bin/client.exe -h "SERVER_IP_ADDRESS" -p PORT

-h { Server IP Address | Default: Localhost }
-p { Listening Port | Defualt: 9000 }

You should have a working CLI chat application!