Applicative functions don't have quite the same semantics as Applicative.Of_Monad(Or_error) would give -- apply (Error e1) (Error e2) returns the combination of e1 and e2, whereas it would only return e1 if it were defined using bind.
t >>= f returns a computation that sequences the computations represented by two monad elements. The resulting computation first does t to yield a value v, and then runs the computation returned by f v.
ignore_m t is map t ~f:(fun _ -> ()). ignore_m used to be called ignore, but we decided that was a bad name, because it shadowed the widely used Stdlib.ignore. Some monads still do let ignore = ignore_m for historical reasons.
try_with f catches exceptions thrown by f and returns them in the Result.t as an Error.t. try_with_join is like try_with, except that f can throw exceptions or return an Error directly, without ending up with a nested error; it is equivalent to Result.join (try_with f).
val try_with_join : ?backtrace:bool ->(unit ->'at)->'at
error ?strict message a sexp_of_a
= Error (Error.create ?strict message a sexp_of_a)
As with Error.create, sexp_of_a a is lazily computed when the info is converted to a sexp. So, if a is mutated in the time between the call to create and the sexp conversion, those mutations will be reflected in the sexp. Use ~strict:() to force sexp_of_a a to be computed immediately.
errorf format arg1 arg2 ... is Error (sprintf format arg1 arg2 ...). Note that it calculates the string eagerly, so when performance matters you may want to use error instead.
For marking a given value as unimplemented. Typically combined with conditional compilation, where on some platforms the function is defined normally, and on some platforms it is defined as unimplemented. The supplied string should be the name of the function that is unimplemented.