[erlang-questions] idea: ml9 (sort of) in the erlang shell

[Ulf Wiger]

2007/11/13, Ulf Wiger <ulf@REDACTED>:
>
>> Here's a more outlandish idea:
>
> Allow for arbitrary syntax to be inserted in the shell, by
> catching lines starting with '@' (only because this is what
> Joe used in his ML9).

Now for the ultimate display of usefulness:

6> @ type(module).
-module(xXx).
-author('mats cronqvist').
-export([x/1]).

-define(x,x(.
-define(Xx,X.
-define(X,X)

->. ?x?X?Xx.
@
{module,xXx}

   (So, we successfully defined, compiled and loaded a module from
    the shell, but what does it do? The subtle macros have me confused.
    Let's type it in again, with an added option. Luckily, copy/paste is easy
    since the prompt isn't repeated for each line.)

7> @ type(module), return(pretty).
-module(xXx).
-author('mats cronqvist').
-export([x/1]).

-define(x,x(.
-define(Xx,X.
-define(X,X)

->. ?x?X?Xx.
@
"-module(xXx).\n-author('mats cronqvist').\n-export([x/1]).\nx(X) ->\n    X.\n"
8> io:fwrite("~s~n", [v(7)]).
-module(xXx).
-author('mats cronqvist').
-export([x/1]).
x(X) ->
    X.

ok

   (Ah, now even I can understand it!)

9> xXx:x(17).
17

For this to work, I had to replace Mats's macro parser with epp,
and used my ram_file_io_server module and a slightly hacked epp
(to be able to hand it a descriptor to an already opened file.)


BR,
Ulf W