Erlang escript launching application with start parameters - erlang

Question

Currently my Erlang application is started within an escript (TCP server) and all works fine since it uses the default port I provided. Now I want to pass the port via the escript to the application but I have no idea how. (The app runs a supervisor)
script.escript
!/usr/bin/env escript
%% -*- erlang -*-
-export([main/1]).
main([UDPort, TCPort]) ->
U = list_to_integer(UDPort),
T = list_to_integer(TCPort),
app:start(), %% Want to pass T into the startup.
receive
_ -> ok
end;
...
app.erl
-module(app).
-behaviour(application).
-export([start/0, start/2, stop/0, stop/1]).
-define(PORT, 4300).
start () -> application:start(?MODULE). %% This is called by the escript.
stop () -> application:stop(?MODULE).
start (_StartType, _StartArgs) -> supervisor:start(?PORT).
stop (_State) -> ok.
I'm honestly not sure if this is possible with using application but I thought it best to just ask.

Answer 1

The common way is to start things from whatever shell just calling
erl -run foo
But you can also do
erl -appname key value
to set an environment value and then
application:get_env(appname, key)
to get the value you are looking for.
That said...
I like to have service applications be things that don't have to shut down to be (re)configured. I usually include some message protocol like {config, Aspect, Setting} or similar that can alter the basic state of a service on the fly. Because I often do this I usually just wind up having whatever script starts up the application also send a configuration message to it.
So with this in mind, consider this rough conceptual example:
!/usr/bin/env escript
%% -*- erlang -*-
-export([main/1]).
main([UDPort, TCPort]) ->
U = list_to_integer(UDPort),
T = list_to_integer(TCPort),
ok = case whereis(app) of
undefined -> app:start();
_Pid -> ok
end,
ok = set_ports(U, T).
%% Just an illustration.
%% Making this a synchronous gen_server/gen_fsm call is way better.
set_ports(U, T) ->
app ! {config, listen, {tcp, T}},
app ! {config, listen, {udp, U}},
ok.
Now not only is the startup script a startup script, it is also a config script. The point isn't to have a startup script, it is to have a service running on the ports you designated. This isn't a conceptual fit for all tools, of course, but it should give you some ideas. There is also the practice of putting a config file somewhere the application knows to look and just reading terms from it, among other techniques (like including ports in the application specification, etc.).
Edit
I just realized you are doing this in an escript which will spawn a new node every time you call it. To make the technique above work properly you would need to make the escript name a node for the service to run on, and locate it if it already exists.