Class Materials

Development Tools

For Windows

• Erlang Runtime Environment
• Notepad++ Editor

How to enable Erlang syntax-highlighting in Notepad++? (Windows Only)

1. Install Notepad++ if you have not done so.
2. Download the Erlang language definition file, userDefineLang.xml (Right-click, Save link as...).
3. Click Start, then Run (or go to the Search box in Vista or Win7), then type, %appdata% and then press ENTER.
4. Place userDefineLang.xml inside the Notepad++ folder (listed when you did Step 3) and then restart Notepad++.

After doing this, your Notepad++ should be able to do syntax-highlighting in your Erlang source code once you save it with a .erl extension.

For Linux Users: Download and install the Erlang runtime environment via your distro's package manager. Or better yet, install it from source. 

Here's how:

1. Download the latest source tarball (http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R14B03.tar.gz)
2. Copy your source tarball into your /usr/local/src folder (you must be root to write into this folder).
3. Uncompress it by tar xvzf otp_src_R14B03.tar.gz
4. Then cd otp_src_R14B03
5. Issue the command, ./configure
6. Then,  make
7. And finally, make install

To start the Erlang runtime environment, issue the following command (as non-root) at the command prompt,

$ erl 

You can use gEdit as your source code editor. 

Textbook / References:

• Erlang Programming
• Erlang User's Manual

Online Tutorial:

• Erlang: Give it a try!

Erlang Users/Apps:

•  Who uses Erlang for research and teaching?
•  Who uses Erlang for product development?