Error: Atom expected

[smccauliff]

I'm new to ocaml and dune so this is probably a bad question. Sorry about that.

I'm trying to build multiple executables. I keep getting something that looks like a syntax error. Then I tried to run an example from the dune documentation and it gets a similar error. "opam upgrade dune" says everything is up to date

This is from the dune documentation:
(executables
((names (a b c))
(modes ((byte exe) (native shared_object)))))

File "dune", line 2, characters 2-17:
2 | ((names (a b c))
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Error: Atom expected

My goal is just to write several example programs to learn ocaml. All the .ml files are in a single directory. If reorganizing things would help then I could do that, but it's not clear how to do that either.

Thanks

[ghost]

The error message is not great and could definitely be improved. You need to remove a few parentheses:

(executables
 (names (a b c)
 (modes (byte exe) (native shared_object)))

Could you point to where this example comes from the doc? Or better, submit a PR :)

[smccauliff]

When this is paste into the dune file I get:
dune build
File "dune", line 4, characters 1-1:
4 |

Error: unclosed parenthesis at end of input

Adding an additional parenthesis (names (a b c))
2 | (names (a b c))
^^^^^^^
Error: Atom or quoted string expected

Adding the ) at the end:
File "dune", line 2, characters 8-15:
2 | (names (a b c)
^^^^^^^
Error: Atom or quoted string expected

[nojb]

Try removing the parentheses before "a" :)

(executables
 (names a b c)
 (modes (byte exe) (native shared_object)))