[erlang-questions] Question about record_info

Daniel Luna luna@REDACTED
Mon Jan 8 12:36:26 CET 2007


On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Ladislav Lenart wrote:
> How can I obtain info about a record given its name?
> For example let's suppose I have an obligate person
> record with fields: name, phone and address. I would
> like to be able to do the following:
> record_info(fields, person) %% -> {name, phone, address}
>
> The following is what the reference manual says about the
> topic (section 8.7 Internal Representation of Records):
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> To each module using records, a pseudo function is added
> during compilation to obtain information about records:
>
> record_info(fields, Record) -> [Field]
> record_info(size, Record) -> Size
>
> Size is the size of the tuple representation, that is one
> more than the number of fields.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> But whatever I try, I get either:
>  * undef for record_info function,
>  * illegal record info,
>  * record Name undefined.

record_info is not a proper function. It only exists during compilation, 
which means that it cannot take variable arguments.

record_info(fields, address) %% works

Rec = address,
record_info(fields, Rec) %% doesn't work!

Of course it only works if the address record is defined in that module.

If you do want a function that uses record_info, try to use a macro 
instead.

This will work:

-define(print_fields(Rec), io:format("~p~n", [record_info(fields, Rec)])).

And then use: ?print_fields(address)

This will not work:

print_fields(Rec) ->
   io:format("~p~n", [record_info(fields, Rec)]).


So you need two things:

1. the record needs to be defined in the module where you use record_info 
(through an -include or through -record).

2. The argument to record_info needs to be an 'atom' and not a Variable.


/Luna
-- 
Daniel Luna                           | Top reasons that I have a beard:
luna@REDACTED                     |  a) Laziness.
http://www.update.uu.se/~luna/        |  b) I can.
Don't look at my homepage (it stinks).|  c) I can get away with it.



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