[erlang-questions] newbie question on deploying third party tools

[Michael McDaniel]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 09:30:31AM -0400, Larry White wrote:
>    I'm trying to learn erlang by reading the books and building an account
>    management application that would let me exercise some important
>    functionality (cryptography, persistence, sending emails, etc.
> 
>    Based on recent posts to this list, I'm interested in trying the
>    smtp-fsm and epgsql libraries.  My general question is: How do you
>    deploy these things?
> 
>    More specifically, I have my own app with its own src subfolder, etc.
>    Where do third party libraries get installed relative to something like
>    this?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 I place smtp_fsm.erl into my application src directory and have
 it compile to ebin (which is in my local '-pa /path/to/ebin' when
 I invoke erl [i.e. my application]).

 If I used a more complex multi-module solution I would probably
 have it in its own subdirectory and include a different ebin.

 I use smpt_fsm.erl thusly from one of my modules ...


send( From, To, Subj, Msg ) ->
  
    try smtp_fsm:start("mx.some_domain.some_tld")
        of {ok, Pid} -> smtp_fsm:ehlo(Pid) ,
                        smtp_fsm:sendemail(Pid, 
                                           From, 
                                           To, 
                                           "Subject: "++Subj++"\n"++Msg) ,
                        catch smtp_fsm:close(Pid) ;

        _Other       -> no_mail_today
    catch _:_        -> no_mail_today
    end
.


 There are other ways of doing it.  Some libraries I keep in completely
 separate (OTP) directory structures and then include their ebin path


   erl -pa /path/to/some/library/ebin  -pa /path/to/another/ebin ...


 or, if I have a bunch of libraries I want to include

  erl -pa /home/libraries/mm/*/ebin


  /home/libraries/mm
                -----
                 /lib_one    /lib_two   ...   /lib_n
                  /ebin       /ebin    ...     /ebin


  lib_one ... lib_n have the regular /src, /include, etc. OTP subdirectories



 With regard to the above smtp_fsm:start/1, occasionally I will import
 a module, e.g.

  -import([smtp_fsm]).

 and then just make the fun call start/1  (though not in a case like this
 where 'start' is so common across modules !).  Also, I say 'occassionally'
 I will import becuase 'usually' I want to use explicit module names.


~Michael



> 
>    Also, what if anything, do I then need to do to use the applications?
> 
>    Thanks.

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-- 
Michael McDaniel
Portland, Oregon, USA
http://trip.autosys.us
http://autosys.us
http://mmcdaniel.com/erlview