Erlang Programming Language
Some Facts
Erlang is a functional and concurrent programming language, used to develop concurrent and distributed systems. The declarative is suitable for programming telecommunications systems as well as for industrial embedded real-time control problems. The language offers solutions for programming large concurrent real-time systems.
Erlang allows at the same time, writing applications for single computers as well as for a network of computers.
The Erlang programming language is associated with the term OTP, that signifies Open Telecom Platform. It is at the same time, a set of libraries, and design principles for Erlang programs. The libraries are the Erlang runtime system, and ready to use components. The design principles provide a way to structure the system based on a concept called application. A way to package a system component as library modules or as a supervision tree.
One of the components of Erlang runtime system (ERTS), is the emulator running on top of the host operating system, and it acts similarly as a virtual machine. It is called BEAM, and it is also the machine on which the Elixir programming language runs.
How to install it
- on Windows:
Go to the official download page, and download the Windows installer. Run it, and follow the instructions of the installation.
- on ubuntu :
There is a Pre-built binary package available for Ubuntu, so all you have to do is to run these commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install erlang
The Hello World Example
Create a file named hello.erl in a specific folder (in your user folder for example). In that file, write the following code:
-module(hello).
-export([hello_world/0]).
hello_world() -> io:fwrite("hello, world\n").
Open the erlang shell, change the current folder to where you saved your file using the cd command, with some modifications:
- The the path will be between parentheses, and quoted.
- Replace each "\" character with the "/" character.
- Finish the command with the . symbol. For example, I saved my file in : "c:\Users\AMINA", the command will be:
cd("c:/users/AMINA").
Now, run the following command to compile your code:
c(hello).
To run your code, type this:
hello:hello_world().
Additional Information
For more information about the Erlang language and the corresponding code, you can check the following pages:
Something to say ?
If you want to add something about the language or about this post, please feel free to do it by commenting below 🙂 .
