In the spirit of:
What are the hidden features of Erlang that every Erlang developer should be aware of?
One hidden feature per answer, please.
The magic commands in the shell. The full list is in the manual, but the ones I use most are:
Inheritance! http://www.erlang.se/euc/07/papers/1700Carlsson.pdf
Parent
-module(parent).
-export([foo/0, bar/0]).
foo() ->
io:format("parent:foo/0 ~n", []).
bar() ->
io:format("parent:bar/0 ~n", []).
Child
-module(child).
-extends(parent).
-export([foo/0]).
foo() ->
io:format("child:foo/0 ~n", []).
Console
23> parent:foo().
parent:foo/0
ok
24> parent:bar().
parent:bar/0
ok
25> child:foo().
child:foo/0
ok
26> child:bar().
parent:bar/0
ok
The magic commands in the shell. The full list is in the manual, but the ones I use most are:
Parameterized Modules! From http://www.lshift.net/blog/2008/05/18/late-binding-with-erlang and http://www.erlang.se/euc/07/papers/1700Carlsson.pdf
-module(myclass, [Instvar1, Instvar2]).
-export([getInstvar1/0, getInstvar2/0]).
getInstvar1() -> Instvar1.
getInstvar2() -> Instvar2.
And
Eshell V5.6 (abort with ^G)
1> Handle = myclass:new(123, 234).
{myclass,123,234}
2> Handle:getInstvar1().
123
3> Handle:getInstvar2().
234
user_default.erl - you can build your own shell builtins by having a compiled user_default.beam in your path which can be pretty nifty
beam_lib:chunks can get source code from a beam that was compiled with debug on which can be really usefull
{ok,{_,[{abstract_code,{_,AC}}]}} = beam_lib:chunks(Beam,[abstract_code]).
io:fwrite("~s~n", [erl_prettypr:format(erl_syntax:form_list(AC))]).
Ports, external or linked-in, accept something called io-lists for sending data to them. An io-list is a binary or a (possibly deep) list of binaries or integers in the range 0..255.
This means that rather than concatenating two lists before sending them to a port, one can just send them as two items in a list. So instead of
"foo" ++ "bar"
one do
["foo", "bar"]
In this example it is of course of miniscule difference. But the iolist in itself allows for convenient programming when creating output data. io_lib:format/2,3 itself returns an io list for example.
The function erlang:list_to_binary/1 accepts io lists, but now we have erlang:iolist_to_binary/1 which convey the intention better. There is also an erlang:iolist_size/1.
Best of all, since files and sockets are implemented as ports, you can send iolists to them. No need to flatten or append.
That match specifications can be built using ets:fun2ms(...) where the Erlang fun syntax is used and translated into a match specification with a parse transform.
1> ets:fun2ms(fun({Foo, _, Bar}) when Foo > 0 -> {Foo, Bar} end).
[{{'$1','_','$2'},[{'>','$1',0}],[{{'$1','$2'}}]}]
So no fun-value is ever built, the expression gets replaced with the match-spec at compile-time. The fun may only do things a match expression could do.
Also, ets:fun2ms is available for usage in the shell, so fun-expressions can be tested easily.
.erlang_hosts gives a nice way to share names across machines
Not necessarily "hidden", but I don't see this often. Anonymous functions can have multiple clauses, just like module functions, i.e.
-module(foo).
-compile(export_all).
foo(0) -> "zero";
foo(1) -> "one";
foo(_) -> "many".
anon() ->
fun(0) ->
"zero";
(1) ->
"one";
(_) ->
"many"
end.
1> foo:foo(0).
"zero"
2> foo:foo(1).
"one"
3> foo:foo(2).
"many"
4> (foo:anon())(0).
"zero"
5> (foo:anon())(1).
"one"
6> (foo:anon())(2).
"many"
The gen___tcp and ssl sockets have a {packet, Type} socket option to aid in decoding a number of protocols. The function erlang:decode_packet/3 has a good description on what the various Type values can be and what they do.
Together with a {active, once} or {active, true} setting, each framed value will be delivered as a single message.
Examples: the packet http mode is used heavily for iserve and the packet fcgi mode for ifastcgi. I can imagine that many of the other http servers use packet http as well.
.erlang can preload libraries and run commands on a shells startup, you can also do specific commands for specific nodes by doing a case statement on node name.
If you want to execute more than one expression in a list comprehension, you can use a block. For example:
> [begin erlang:display(N), N*10 end || N <- lists:seq(1,3)].
1
2
3
[10,20,30]
Matching with the append operator:
"pajamas:" ++ Color = "pajamas:blue"
Color now has the value "blue". Be aware that this trick has it’s limitations - as far as I know it only works with a single variable and a single constant in the order given above.
You can hide an Erlang node by starting it with:
erl -sname foo -hidden
You can still connect to the node, but it won't appear in the list returned by nodes/0.
Not so hidden, but one of the most important aspects, when chosing Erlang as platform for development:
It is possible to define your own iterator for QLC to use. For example, a result set from an SQL query could be made into a QLC table, and thus benefit from the features of QLC queries.
Besides mnesia tables, dets and ets have the table/1,2 functions to return such a "Query Handle" for them.
Hot code loading. From wiki.
Code is loaded and managed as "module" units, the module is a compilation unit. The system can keep two versions of a module in memory at the same time, and processes can concurrently run code from each.
The versions are referred to the "new" and the "old" version. A process will not move into the new version until it makes an external call to its module.
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