Changing a mutable field in OCaml - syntax-error

Question

When I run the following code I get a syntax error, although as far as I can tell the syntax is correct. This attempts to implement a queue structure, where the function from_list converts a list to a queue with the corresponding values. I wrote str_of_int_q to print the contents of a queue. x and y are supposed to be two nodes, with x at the head and y at the tail.
;; open Assert
type 'a qnode = {v: 'a;
mutable next: 'a qnode option}
type 'a queue = {mutable head: 'a qnode option;
mutable tail: 'a qnode option}
let from_list (l: 'a list) : 'a queue =
let rec loop (l2: 'a list) (qu: 'a queue) =
begin match l2 with
| [] -> qu
| [x] -> let y = {v = x; next = None} in
qu.head <- Some y; qu.tail <- Some y;
qu
| h1::h2::t -> let y = qu.head in
let z = {v = h1; next = y} in
qu.head <- Some z;
qu
end
in loop l {head = None; tail = None}
let str_of_int_q (q: int queue) : string =
let rec loop (r: int qnode option) (s: string) : string =
begin match r with
| None -> s
| Some n -> loop n.next (s ^ (string_of_int n.v))
end
in loop q.head ""
let x = {v = 1; next = None}
let y = {v = 2; next = None}
x.next <- Some y;
let z = {head = Some x; tail = Some y}
;; print_endline (str_of_int_q z)
My error:
line 32, characters 7-9:
Error: Syntax error
Line 32 is the line x.next <- Some y; and characters 7-9 indicate the <-. But I'm storing into a mutable field an object of the appropriate type, so I don't see what's going wrong.

Answer 1

Top-level statements are separated by ;; in OCaml. However, ;; is optional before several keywords, such as let, open, type, etc. This is why you don't need ;; most of the time.
In your case, ;; is needed to disambiguate between let y = {v = 2; next = None} and x.next <- Some y. The latter is an expression and doesn't start with a special keyword, so OCaml doesn't know to insert an implicit ;; here.
See also http://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/structure_of_ocaml_programs.html#The-disappearance-of.
As explained there, you can either do
let y = {v = 2; next = None}
;; x.next <- Some y
or
let y = {v = 2; next = None}
let () = x.next <- Some y
This latter solution works because by introducing a dummy binding we're starting our statement with let, which disambiguates again.
Note: I've also removed the trailing ; from your code. ; is actually an infix operator that combines two expressions (by throwing the result of the first one away and returning the result of the second one). This is not what you want here.