Reference: Daml file structure

This page gives reference information on the structure of Daml files outside of templates.

File structure

• This file’s module name (module NameOfThisFile where).

  Part of a hierarchical module system to facilitate code reuse. Must be the same as the Daml file name, without the file extension.

  For a file with path ./Scenarios/Demo.daml, use module Scenarios.Demo where.

Imports

• You can import other modules (import OtherModuleName), including qualified imports (import qualified AndYetOtherModuleName, import qualified AndYetOtherModuleName as Signifier). Can’t have circular import references.
• To import the Prelude module of ./Prelude.daml, use import Prelude.
• To import a module of ./Scenarios/Demo.daml, use import Scenarios.Demo.
• If you leave out qualified, and a module alias is specified, top-level declarations of the imported module are imported into the module’s namespace as well as the namespace specified by the given alias.

Libraries

A Daml library is a collection of related Daml modules.

Define a Daml library using a LibraryModules.daml file: a normal Daml file that imports the root modules of the library. The library consists of the LibraryModules.daml file and all its dependencies, found by recursively following the imports of each module.

Errors are reported in Daml Studio on a per-library basis. This means that breaking changes on shared Daml modules are displayed even when the files are not explicitly open.

Comments

Use -- for a single line comment. Use {- and -} for a comment extending over multiple lines.

Contract identifiers

When an instance of a template (that is, a contract) is added to the ledger, it’s assigned a unique identifier, of type ContractId <name of template>.

The runtime representation of these identifiers depends on the execution environment: a contract identifier from the Sandbox may look different to ones on other Daml Ledgers.

You can use == and /= on contract identifiers of the same type.