Awesome

Status

No maintenance intended, however, I'm happy to merge your PR's if they're detailed.

This is the original version of erln8 written in C. Theres a new version written in D that's buggy: http://erln8.github.io/erln8/.

What is it?

erln8 (erl-in-ate) allows you to compile and manage multiple versions of Erlang from source. Instead of downloading individual source packages, it downloads the Github OTP mirror so you are essentially downloading all available versions at once. Additionaly, you can add your own git repos to support custom OTP patches etc.

The cool thing about erln8 is that you only need to add it to your PATH to use it. No funny environment tweaking ;-) It works by reading an erln8.config config file out of the current directory, or by searching up the directory tree until it finds one. This allows you to "set a version of Erlang to use for a project and forget it".

What erln8 isn't

erln8 does not manage Erlang build dependencies. If you are using erln8, I'm assuming you are already capable enough to figure these out on your own.

Installation

NOTE: erln8 version 0.9.0 breaks backwards compatibility. You'll need to rm -rf ~/.erln8.d and reinitialize erln8.

OSX

brew install https://raw.github.com/metadave/homebrew/erln8/Library/Formula/erln8.rb
 ## this will install the glib dependency if not already installed

See the Building section below to continue.

Ubuntu

(Erlang + general erln8 deps)

sudo apt-get install build-essential libncurses5-dev openssl libssl-dev fop xsltproc unixodbc-dev libglib2.0-dev git autoconf

See the Building section below to continue.

Fedora

(Erlang + general erln8 deps)

sudo yum install gcc glibc-devel make ncurses-devel openssl-devel autoconf glib2-devel.x86_64 git

this can be helpful as well:

yum groupinstall "Development tools"

See the Building section below to continue.

FreeBSD

Install the glib20 port:

# as root
cd /usr/ports/devel/glib20
make install

Install additional dependencies:

pkg install git-2.3.0
pkg install autoconf-2.69
pkg install gmake

Use gmake instead of make:

export MAKE_BIN=gmake

NOTE to install erln8 on FreeBSD, you'll need to run:

sudo gmake install

See the Building section below to continue.

Arch

Install erln8 from AUR:

yaourt erln8

Or grab the package tarball/PKGBUILD from: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/erln8/

The PKBUILD repo lives at https://github.com/aerosol/erln8-aur

Building

 # remove Erlang from your path!!

git clone https://github.com/metadave/erln8.git
cd erln8
make
sudo make install
 # NOTE: on FreeBSD, you MUST use
 #   sudo gmake install

 # the default location is /usr/local/bin/erln8
 # OR
sudo make PREFIX=/opt install

Running the tests (Optional)

Running the tests requires Ruby 1.9.3 + iniparse (which is installed via bundle install).

cd test
bundle install
make

Uninstall

cd erln8
sudo make uninstall

Dependencies

• git
• glib-2.0
• gio-2.0

Quickstart

To create erln8 config files, clone the default OTP repo, and build the latest version of Erlang (OTP-17.0.1 as of writing), simply run:

erln8 --quickstart

Depending on your system, it could take quite awhile to download the OTP Git repository and build Erlang. It might be a nice time to get a beer/coffee/tea/Tab.

Note: there aren't any options passed to the configure script during build when --quickstart is used. On OSX, this defaults to a measly 32-bits install.

Once the quickstart completes, you'll still need to cd to a directory where you want to use Erlang and run:

erln8 --use quickstart_build

The quickstart will fail Erlang build dependencies aren't installed or correct. Once you have the required dependencies installed, you can continue the build with the following:

erln8 --build --tag OTP_R16B02 --id R16B02

Initial setup

If you haven't added the erln8 directory to your path, do it now. If you already have Erlang in your path, REMOVE IT!

Run this once, it creates ~/.erln8.d and ~/.erln8.d/config

erln8 --init

Next, you'll need to clone the OTP source repo from Github if you don't have Erlang installed. This default repo is cloned to ~/.erln8.d/repos/default.

erln8 --clone default

To see a list of versions you can build, run:

erln8 --buildable

or

erln8 --buildable --repo default

replacing default with whatever erln8-configured Git repo you want to use.

If you already have Erlang installed, skip down to Linking an Existing Erlang below.

The following command will build Erlang R16B02 using the OTP_R16B02 tag from Git. This build can now be referred to by the --id value (see the erln8 --use example below). Also, see the ~/.erln8.d/config file for specific configs or add your own, or run erln8 --configs.

  erln8 --build --tag OTP_R16B02 --id r16b02 --config osx_llvm
  erln8 --build --tag OTP_R15B01 --id r15b01 --config osx_llvm

You can specify alternate Git repos to build from. erln8 --repos lists available repos or look in ~/.erln8.d/config

  erln8 --build --repo basho --tag OTP_R15B01 --id r15b01p --config osx_llvm

##Linking an existing version Erlang

If you already have a version of Erlang build at an alternate location, you can link erlang to it.

For example, I have an old copy of Erlang R14B04 located in /Users/dparfitt/erlang_R14B04, and I'd like to reference it by the ID R14B04:

erln8 --link /Users/dparfitt/erlang_R14B04 --id R14B04

You'll be able to run erln8 --list and see the linked version:

R16B02b3:slag:~$ erln8 --list
R16B02b3 -> /Users/dparfitt/.erln8.d/otps/R16B02b3
R16B02 -> /Users/dparfitt/.erln8.d/otps/R16B02
R14B04 -> /Users/dparfitt/.erln8.d/otps/R14B04

If I want to unlink this version of Erlang: version of Erlang:

NOTE: This does NOTE remove the Erlang directory that erln8 has linked to.

erln8 --unlink --id R14B04

at which point, R14B04 won't show up as a version of Erlang to use.

R16B02b3:slag:~$ erln8 --list
R16B02b3 -> /Users/dparfitt/.erln8.d/otps/R16B02b3
R16B02 -> /Users/dparfitt/.erln8.d/otps/R16B02

Usage

To see which versions of Erlang are available for use from erln8, run:

  erln8 --list

For any directory that has an Erlang project, you can run erln8 with the --use option to mark that directory and all subdirectories to use a specific version of Erlang WHENEVER YOU CD INTO THAT DIRECTORY.

 erln8 --use r16b02

If you need to change the version of Erlang that's already been configured for the current directory:

 erln8 --use r16b01 --force

If you want to find out which version of Erlang the cwd is using,

erln8 --show

This command simply creates an erln8.config file in the cwd. You can even edit it by hand to specify the configured version of Erlang by id, or just rerun erln8 --use some_other_version to change the value.

[0]:prime:~$ cat erln8.config
[Config]
Erlang=r16b02

All Commands

Shell Completion

erln8 provides shell completion for commands, available Erlang installations, and buildable Erlang installation.

source ~/path_to_erln8/bash_completion/erln8

If you installed on OSX via Brew (above), bash_completion is installed automatically for you.

Using erln8 outside of $HOME

A section titled SystemRoots can be created and maintained inside of ~/.erln8.d/config to specify versions of Erlang to use outside of $HOME. This can be useful if you don't have write access to these directories.

[SystemRoots]
/opt/foo=R16B01
/tmp=R15B01p

NOTE: a SystemRoot setting will NOT follow symlinks. On OSX, /tmp (among other paths) is actually a symlink to /private/tmp. Thanks Apple!

Setting up a default version to use

a) if you won't be using Erlang outside of $HOME

Simply run erln8 from your home directory with a version of Erlang that you'd like to use elsewhere.

NOTE: if you are building/running Erlang source from outside of your home directory, you'll need to run erln8 at a location higher up the directory tree.

b) specifying a system wide default

you can specify a system default in ~/.erln8.d/config:

[Erln8]
system_default=R16B02

Note, the ID that is specified (R16B02 in this example) must have already been built or linked to erln8.

Keeping your source repos up-to-date

To get the latest OTP tags/branchs, you'll need to issue a fetch:

erln8 --fetch default

where default is the repo name. If you have multiple repositories configured, you'll need to issue fetch once per repo.

Customizing your shell prompt

• Don't customize your prompt until you have erln8 fully installed.

The --prompt parameter displays the configured version of Erlang for the current working directory.

erln8 --prompt

For example, if you are using bash, you could add the following snippet to your .bash_profile:

function erl_version() {
  erln8 --prompt
}

 # note, this also displays git info for the cwd
PS1='\[$(tput bold)\]\[$(tput setaf 2)\]$(erl_version)\[$(tput sgr0)\]:\[\e[0;36m\]$(__git_ps1 "[%s]")\[\e[m\]\[$(tput setaf 3)\]\h\[$(tput sgr0)\]:\w\$ '; [[ $EUID == 0 ]] &&
PS1='\[$(tput bold)\]\[$(tput setaf 2)\]$(erl_version)\[$(tput sgr0)\]:\[\e[0;36m\]$(__git_ps1 "[%s]")\[\e[m\]\[$(tput setaf 3)\]\h\[$(tput sgr0)\]:\w\$ '

Specifying a build config

erln8 allows you to pass arbitrary flags to the configure script as part of a config. To add a config, edit ~/.erln8.d/config and append a name=configstring to the [Configs] section.

Example:

[Configs]
osx_llvm=--disable-hipe --enable-smp-support --enable-threads --enable-kernel-poll --enable-darwin-64bit

To specify environment variables to be used during a build, create a config name=configstring as show above, as well as an additional name_env=vars setting. Any config that has an accompanying *

Example:

[Configs]
osx_gcc=--disable-hipe --enable-smp-support --enable-threads --enable-kernel-poll --enable-darwin-64bit
osx_gcc_env=CC=gcc-4.2 CPPFLAGS='-DNDEBUG' MAKEFLAGS='-j 3'

Specifying a default build config

If --config isn't specified as a parameter to a --build, erln8 will use the default_config config variable specified in the Erln8 section of ~/.erln8.d/config. This is simply the name of a config as configured above.

[Erln8]
default_config=default

For example, if --config isn't specified as a parameter to a --build, the config osx_llvm will be used:

[Erln8]
default_config=osx_llvm

Getting help

You can ask questions on the Freenode #erln8 IRC channel.

You can also ask questions on the erln8 mailing list.

#Contributing

Fork this repo, create a feature branch using something like this:

git checkout -b branch_name

and submit a pull request.

Please send me an email (dparfitt at getchef dot com) and let me know if you want to work on any features.

Only friendly pull requests accepted.

#License

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html

© 2015 Dave Parfitt