[erlang-questions] bug in escript and a question

[Joe Armstrong]

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 1:39 PM, Lars Thorsen <lars@REDACTED> wrote:
>
> You can't have Erlang code on the first line in an escript, here are some
> lines from the man page ;).
>
> --------------------------------
> The header of the Erlang script in the example differs from a normal Erlang
> module. The first line is intended to be the interpreter line, which invokes
> escript. However if you invoke the escript like this
>
> $ escript factorial 5
>
> the contents of the first line does not matter, but it cannot contain Erlang
> code as it will be ignored.

Goodness gracious me - you are indeed correct -

My flabber has been gasted - this surely violates the principle of
least astonishment,
I need a nip of strong smelling-salts to recover.

I thing it would be splendiferous if one could add a line of code in
the first line
of an escript file and if the documentation were to be revised to
remove this rather bizaare
restriction.

/Joe






>
> The second line in the example, contains an optional directive to the Emacs
> editor which causes it to enter the major mode for editing Erlang source
> files. If the directive is present it must be located on the second line.
>
> On the third line (or second line depending on the presence of the Emacs
> directive), it is possible to give arguments to the emulator, such as
>
> %%! -smp enable -sname factorial -mnesia debug verbose
>
> Such an argument line must start with %%! and the rest of the line will
> interpreted as arguments to the emulator.
> -------------------------------
>
>
> ///Lars
>
>
> Joe Armstrong wrote:
>>
>> This escript fails
>>
>>
>>  +-------------------------------------
>>    -record(b,{this=that}).
>>
>>    main(_) ->
>>       io:format("B=~p~n",[#b{}]),
>>       halt(1).
>>  +-----------------------------------
>>
>> The code is between the lines marked +------
>>
>> This is what happens
>>
>> $ escript b 12
>> b:3: record b undefined
>> escript: There were compilation errors.
>>
>> If you add a single blank or comment before the record declartion then it
>> works
>>
>>  +-------------------------------------
>>   %% comment
>>    -record(b,{this=that}).
>>
>>    main(_) ->
>>       io:format("B=~p~n",[#b{}]),
>>       halt(1).
>>  +-----------------------------------
>> $ escript b 12
>> B={b,that}
>> joe@REDACTED:~/work/c_compiler/bic_current/src$
>>
>> Now it works
>>
>> Also -include(..) just doesn't work but -include_lib(...) does.
>> I cannot think why this should be so - is there any good reason for this?
>> I can't think of one.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> /Joe
>>
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>
>