[erlang-questions] Determining HiPE availability

[Kostis Sagonas]

Tony Arcieri wrote:
> I'm compiling modules at runtime using smerl, and would like to 
> automatically use HiPE if it's available.  I needed a way to 
> programmatically determine if HiPE is available.  Someone pointed me at 
> erlang:system_info(hipe_architecture) which returns 'undefined' if HiPE 
> is unavailable.  However, this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere.  
> Should it be?

I am also not sure whether this should be documented, but I think it is 
pretty safe to assume that erlang:system_info(hipe_architecture) will, 
for a long time to come, continue to return 'undefined' if HiPE is 
unavailable.  In that sense, I think it is OK to use it.

But I would not recommend matching on the rest of the values that this 
BIF returns.

Kostis