erl_call (was Re: Erlang filesystem)

[Chris Pressey]

On 09 May 2003 05:59:15 +0200
Luke Gorrie <luke@REDACTED> wrote:

> Chris Pressey <cpressey@REDACTED> writes:
> 
> > Downright inspired me to prove that I wasn't just all talk, too -
> > I sat myself down and implemented #3.  The README should explain it
> > all:
> > 
> >   http://www.catseye.mb.ca/projects/tellerl-2003.0508/
> 
> Do you know about the erl_call example program included with
> erl_interface? It is actually incredibly cool, but I never remember to
> use it..

Had heard of it, hadn't played with it until now.  No mention of it in
the erl_interface docs that I could see.

It doesn't seem to work for me with short node names, only long ones.

In contrast, tellerl doesn't require any distribution mechanism, just
that tellerl.beam is loaded and started.

tellerl also doesn't allow arbitrary functions to be evaluated.
(This is a *good* thing in my book, much like avoiding export_all is a
good thing... I have enough ComplexityShockHorror in my life as it is)

tellerl.pl also acts as a data pipe destination, which is pretty much a
requirement for things launched from /etc/aliases or a .qmail-* file.
Getting erl_call to do this would be, well, possible, but pretty bodgy
(first pipe the data to something that wraps it in an Erlang expression
then pipe it to erl_call -e ...)

So, yes, I'm marginally aware that I'm reinventing the wheel, but
dangit, not all wheels are the same.

-Chris