massemanet / Distel

distel -- Distributed Emacs Lisp for Erlang.

Distel is a library for Emacs<->Erlang communication, plus a suite of tools built on top of it, such as a debugger front-end. It works by using the Erlang distribution protocol to connect Emacs with regular Erlang nodes, turning it into a very convenient user-interface toolkit.

After the INSTALL procedure, you will have an extended Erlang mode any time you edit erlang files. You can see that this is enabled from the mode-line string "Erlang EXT", instead of just "Erlang". To see the available commands, use `describe-mode' (C-h m), which describes all the currently activated modes. Near the bottom of its output you will find this description:

Extensions to erlang-mode for communicating with a running Erlang node.

These commands generally communicate with an Erlang node. The first time you use one, you will be prompted for the name of the node to use.

Here's a subset of the available commands. Use `describe-mode' (C-h m) on any Distel buffer when you want to know what commands are available.

C-c C-d n - set the erlang node name C-c C-d g - upload the distel modules to the erlang node

M-/ - Complete a module or remote function name. M-. - Jump from a function call to its definition. M-, - Jump back from a function definition (multi-level). C-c C-d : - Evaluate an erlang expression from the minibuffer. C-c C-d f - Refactor expressions in the region as a new function. C-c C-d F - Find a module. C-c C-d i - Toggle debug interpretping of the module. C-c C-d b - Toggle a debugger breakpoint at the current line. C-c C-d p - Profile (with fprof) an expression from the minibuffer. C-c C-d L - Reload an Erlang module. C-c C-d r - Reload all Erlang modules that are out of date. C-c C-d w - Who calls function under point. C-c C-d H - Show the html documentation for a function. C-c C-d Z - Show the signature for a function.

To get more information about a particular command, use "C-h k" followed by the command's key sequence. For general information about Emacs' online help, use "C-h ?".

If you want to write new commands of your own, the programmer's manual tells you how. You can make a postscript copy with "make postscript", or an Info version with "make info" and "make info_install".

For more background about the "Session" commands, have a look in README.ie-session.

Hope you enjoy, and please send hacks or feedback to [email protected](*)!

PS: The "dynamic TAGS" with M-. and M-, is the coolest bit to get started with!

Compatibility notes:

The profiler front end requires >= R8B (to get fprof) The debugger front end requires >= R8B-1

Distel itself is not formally tested, but it has enough savvy users that it'll typically run on the last 2 versions of Erlang and Emacs (as of 2008 OTP R11/R12 and Emacs 21/22).

(*) Luke Gorrie is unfortunately no longer involved with Distel, and Blutail no longer exists... there is of course the distel-hackers mailing list; https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/distel-hackers

and the issue tracker at google; http://code.google.com/p/distel

FAQ

1. Can't handle event closed in state derl-recv-challenge-ack

this is what you get if the erlang node and the distel node disagree one what cookie to use.

Use (in erl) erlang:get_cookie() and (in emacs) M-x erl-get-cookie to check the cookies.