Erlang: add libraries to application - erlang

I use erlIDE (based on Eclipse) to work on Erlang projects. Till today everything was fine, but today I have to use external library (couchbeam) in my application. I found out, what is hell, btw.)
The problem is simple – I cannot include external library to compiler path. I've used rebar to get couchbeam's dependencies and it also downloaded ibrowse, mochiweb and ejson.
How can I include those libraries to compiler path without modifing ERL_LIBS to work on project in erlIDE?
I do not want modify ERL_LIBS, because I can change projects's path, start new one (then I should modify ERL_LIBS again) and so on.
I've tried compiler options in erlIDE:
{pa, {pa, 'site_stater/deps/couchbeam/'}}
or
{pa, {pa, '../deps/couchbeam/'}}
where 'site_stater' – is project's name
I wonder how professional erlang programmers organaze their projects workflow (where they write erlang progs, how debuggin it, deal with external libraries and so on).
Many thanks for your attension.
UPDATE
I wrote simple function to load libraries, but I think it is still wrong way to deal with this problem:
load_libraries() ->
ProjectRoot = filename:join([filename:absname("./"), "site_stater"]),
{ok, DepsList} = file:list_dir(ProjectRoot ++ "/deps/"),
lists:foreach(fun (Folder) ->
RealFolder = ProjectRoot ++ "/deps/" ++ Folder,
case filelib:is_dir(RealFolder) of
true ->
code:add_patha(filename:join([RealFolder, "/ebin"]));
false -> ok
end
end,
DepsList),
ok.

I can't verify it right now, but you should be able to use {pa, '../deps/couchbeam/'} in the compiler options. If that doesn't work, please try using an absolute path.
The compiler settings are not finished yet, we plan to have some simpler way to refer to external libraries but we're not there yet. Every such query from users increases the importance of fixing it!
regards,
Vlad

Related

Does a BEAM file remember whether it was built with -Werror?

I am working on a tool that deals with BEAM files, and we want to be able to assume the code was compiled with -Werror, so we don't have to repeat validations that are already done by the erl_lint compiler pass.
Is there a way to figure out if the BEAM was built with -Werror?
I'd expect beam_lib:chunks/2 to help here, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to have what I'm looking for:
beam_lib:chunks("sample.beam", [debug_info, attributes, compile_info]).
% the stuff returned says nothing about -Werror, even if I compile with -Werror
It seems that this information would be always stripped
However, if you are in control of compilation process - you can put additional info into beam files, - which will be accessible through M:module_info(compile) and via beam chunks as well.
For example in rebar:
{erl_opts, [debug_info, {compile_info, [{my_key, my_value}]}]}.
And then:
1> my_module:module_info(compile).
[{version,"7.6.6"},
{options,[debug_info, ...
{my_key,my_value}]
The same is true for "discoverability" of this key directly from beam chunks:
2> beam_lib:chunks("my_beam.beam", [compile_info]).
{ok, ... {my_key,my_value}]}]}}
Meaning, that you can "stamp" your beam files with some meta-information easily. So, a workaround may be to stamp those beam files with this mark.

FAKE Fsc task is writing build products to wrong directory

I'm just learning F#, and setting up a FAKE build harness for a hello-world-like application. (Though the phrase "Hell world" does occasionally come to mind... :-) I'm using a Mac and emacs (generally trying to avoid GUI IDEs by preference).
After a bit of fiddling about with documentation, here's how I'm invoking the F# compiler via FAKE:
let buildDir = #"./build-app/" // Where application build products go
Target "CompileApp" (fun _ -> // Compile application source code
!! #"src/app/**/*.fs" // Look for F# source files
|> Seq.toList // Convert FileIncludes to string list
|> Fsc (fun p -> // which is what the Fsc task wants
{p with //
FscTarget = Exe //
Platform = AnyCpu //
Output = (buildDir + "hello-fsharp.exe") }) // *** Writing to . instead of buildDir?
) //
That uses !! to make a FileIncludes of all the sources in the usual way, then uses Seq.toList to change that to a string list of filenames, which is then handed off to the Fsc task. Simple enough, and it even seems to work:
...
Starting Target: CompileApp (==> SetVersions)
FSC with args:[|"-o"; "./build-app/hello-fsharp.exe"; "--target:exe"; "--platform:anycpu";
"/Users/sgr/Documents/laboratory/hello-fsharp/src/app/hello-fsharp.fs"|]
Finished Target: CompileApp
...
However, despite what the console output above says, the actual build products go to the top-level directory, not the build directory. The message above looks like the -o argument is being passed to the compiler with an appropriate filename, but the executable gets put in . instead of ./build-app/.
So, 2 questions:
Is this a reasonable way to be invoking the F# compiler in a FAKE build harness?
What am I misunderstanding that is causing the build products to go to the wrong place?
This, or a very similar problem, was reported in FAKE issue #521 and seems to have been fixed in FAKE pull request #601, which see.
Explanation of the Problem
As is apparently well-known to everyone but me, the F# compiler as implemented in FSharp.Compiler.Service has a practice of skipping its first argument. See FSharp.Compiler.Service/tests/service/FscTests.fs around line 127, where we see the following nicely informative comment:
// fsc parser skips the first argument by default;
// perhaps this shouldn't happen in library code.
Whether it should or should not happen, it's what does happen. Since the -o came first in the arguments generated by FscHelper, it was dutifully ignored (along with its argument, apparently). Thus the assembly went to the default place, not the place specified.
Solutions
The temporary workaround was to specify --out:destinationFile in the OtherParams field of the FscParams setter in addition to the Output field; the latter is the sacrificial lamb to be ignored while the former gets the job done.
The longer term solution is to fix the arguments generated by FscHelper to have an extra throwaway argument at the front; then these 2 problems will annihilate in a puff of greasy black smoke. (It's kind of balletic in its beauty, when you think about it.) This is exactly what was just merged into the master by #forki23:
// Always prepend "fsc.exe" since fsc compiler skips the first argument
let optsArr = Array.append [|"fsc.exe"|] optsArr
So that solution should be in the newest version of FAKE (3.11.0).
The answers to my 2 questions are thus:
Yes, this appears to be a reasonable way to invoke the F# compiler.
I didn't misunderstand anything; it was just a bug and a fix is in the pipeline.
More to the point: the actual misunderstanding was that I should have checked the FAKE issues and pull requests to see if anybody else had reported this sort of thing, and that's what I'll do next time.

How do I modify the code search path for a remote Erlang node?

I'm connected to an Erlang node with -remsh. How do I modify the code path, in order to load a library that wasn't packaged into my release?
All necessary functions to manipulate code loading, path... are in the code module (see doc at erlang otp code module).
You could add the system paths to the list by doing the following:
[code:add_pathz(P) || P <- filelib:wildcard("/usr/lib/erlang/lib/*/ebin")].
After compiling some test code and connecting to a running node I was able to make it work with this:
(app#127.0.0.1)1> code:add_pathz("/path/to/my/compiled/beam").
(app#127.0.0.1)2> tester:hi().
hi!
ok
(app#127.0.0.1)3>

Running F# xUnit Fact from TestDriven.NET reporting "It looks like you're trying to execute an xUnit.net unit test."

I am trying to run xUnit tests (from an F# module, if it makes any difference) using TestDriven.NET, but whatever I do I get this error:
It looks like you're trying to execute an xUnit.net unit test.
For xUnit 1.5 or above (recommended):
Please ensure that the directory containing your 'xunit.dll' reference also contains xUnit's
test runner files ('xunit.dll.tdnet', 'xunit.runner.tdnet.dll' etc.)
For earlier versions:
You need to install support for TestDriven.Net using xUnit's 'xunit.installer.exe' application.
You can find xUnit.net downloads and support here:
http://www.codeplex.com/xunit
I tried following the suggestions, i.e. I copied the files
xunit.dll.tdnet
xunit.extensions.dll
xunit.gui.clr4.exe
xunit.runner.tdnet.dll
xunit.runner.utility.dll
xunit.runner.utility.xml
xunit.xml
to the folder with xunit.dll and I ran xunit.installer.exe. How can I get it to work?
I just figured out that I forgot to make the test a function in F# (so it was just a value). The error message can't be more misleading though!
You have two problems:
your Fact is broken:-
If you hover over the
please work
bit, you'll see something like: unit -> int
For a Fact to be picked up by an xUnit runner, it needs to yield `unit (void).
Hence, one key thing to get right first is to not return anything. In other words, replace your 123 with () (or an Assertion).
You can guard against this by putting a :unit stipulation on the test:-
[<Fact>]
let ``please work`` () : unit = 123
This will force a compilation error.
TestDriven.NET is reporting it cannot find the xunit.tdnet modules
It's critical to get step 1 right first. Then retry and the problem should be gone
If it remains...
Either try the VS-based runner which should work as long as it's installed and xunit.dll is getting to your output dir or look at the docs for your version of TD.NET for detailed troubleshooting notes (exec summary is if the .tdnet file was in your out dir or you undo and redo the xunit.installer from the folder containing the packages it should just work, esp if you are on latest)

How to distinguish ERTS versions at pre-processing time?

In the recent Erlang R14, inets' file httpd.hrl has been moved from:
src/httpd.hrl
to:
src/http_server/httpd.hrl
The Erlang Web framework includes the file in several places using the following directive:
-include_lib("inets/src/httpd.hrl").
Since I'd love the Erlang Web to compile with both versions of Erlang (R13 and R14), what I'd need ideally is:
-ifdef(OLD_ERTS_VERSION).
-include_lib("inets/src/httpd.hrl").
-else.
-include_lib("inets/src/http_server/httpd.hrl").
-endif.
Even if it possible to retrieve the ERTS version via:
erlang:system_info(version).
That's indeed not possible at pre-processing time.
How to deal with these situations? Is the parse transform the only way to go? Are there better alternatives?
Not sure if you'll like this hackish trick, but you could use a parse transform.
Let's first define a basic parse transform module:
-module(erts_v).
-export([parse_transform/2]).
parse_transform(AST, _Opts) ->
io:format("~p~n", [AST]).
Compile it, then you can include both headers in the module you want this to work for. This should give the following:
-module(test).
-compile({parse_transform, erts_v}).
-include_lib("inets/src/httpd.hrl").
-include_lib("inets/src/http_server/httpd.hrl").
-export([fake_fun/1]).
fake_fun(A) -> A.
If you're on R14B and compile it, you should have the abstract format of the module looking like this:
[{attribute,1,file,{"./test.erl",1}},
{attribute,1,module,test},
{error,{3,epp,{include,lib,"inets/src/httpd.hrl"}}},
{attribute,1,file,
{"/usr/local/lib/erlang/lib/inets-5.5/src/http_server/httpd.hrl",1}},
{attribute,1,file,
{"/usr/local/lib/erlang/lib/kernel-2.14.1/include/file.hrl",1}},
{attribute,24,record,
{file_info,
[{record_field,25,{atom,25,size}},
{record_field,26,{atom,26,type}},
...
What this tells us is that we can use both headers, and the valid one will automatically be included while the other will error out. All we need to do is remove the {error,...} tuple and get a working compilation. To do this, fix the parse_transform module so it looks like this:
-module(erts_v).
-export([parse_transform/2]).
parse_transform(AST, _Opts) ->
walk_ast(AST).
walk_ast([{error,{_,epp,{include,lib,"inets/src/httpd.hrl"}}}|AST]) ->
AST;
walk_ast([{error,{_,epp,{include,lib,"inets/src/http_server/httpd.hrl"}}}|AST]) ->
AST;
walk_ast([H|T]) ->
[H|walk_ast(T)].
This will then remove the error include, only if it's on the precise module you wanted. Other messy includes should fail as usual.
I haven't tested this on all versions, so if the behaviour changed between them, this won't work. On the other hand, if it stayed the same, this parse_transform will be version independent, at the cost of needing to order the compiling order of your modules, which is simple enough with Emakefiles and rebar.
If you are using makefiles, you can do something like
ERTS_VER=$(shell erl +V 2>&1 | egrep -o '[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+')
than match the string and define macro in erlc arguments or in Emakefile.
There is no other way, AFAIK.

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