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Welcome to trapexit.org, the Erlang community site where you can read news and weblogs related to Erlang/OTP, discuss projects, issues and ideas with other Erlang developers, and read and publish articles and HowTos related to Erlang/OTP.

What is Erlang and OTP?

Erlang is a programming language and a runtime system with strong built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance. Originally developed at Ericson, Erlang was released as open source in 1998.

The Open Transaction Platform (OTP) is set of Erlang libraries and design principles providing middle-ware to develop distributed, fault tolerant, massively concurrent soft real-time systems.

Here is an example of Erlang code:

-module(beersong).
-export([sing/0]).
-define(TEMPLATE_0, "~s of beer on the wall, ~s of beer.~n"
                    "Go to the store and buy some more," 
                    "99 bottles of beer on the wall.~n").
-define(TEMPLATE_N, "~s of beer on the wall, ~s of beer.~n"
                    "Take one down and pass it around, ~s"
                    " of beer on the wall.~n~n").

create_verse(0)      -> 
    {0, io_lib:format(?TEMPLATE_0, phrase(0))};
create_verse(Bottle) -> 
    {Bottle, io_lib:format(?TEMPLATE_N, phrase(Bottle))}.

phrase(0)      -> ["No more bottles", "no more bottles"];
phrase(1)      -> ["1 bottle", "1 bottle", "no more bottles"];
phrase(2)      -> ["2 bottles", "2 bottles", "1 bottle"];
phrase(Bottle) -> 
     lists:duplicate(2,integer_to_list(Bottle) ++ " bottles") ++ 
                     [integer_to_list(Bottle-1) ++ " bottles"].
bottles() -> lists:reverse(lists:seq(0,99)).
sing() ->
    lists:foreach(fun spawn_singer/1, bottles()),
    sing_verse(99).
spawn_singer(Bottle) ->
    Pid = self(), 
    spawn(fun() -> Pid ! create_verse(Bottle) end).
sing_verse(Bottle) ->
    receive
	{_, Verse} when Bottle == 0 ->
	    io:format(Verse);
	{N, Verse} when Bottle == N ->
	    io:format(Verse),
	    sing_verse(Bottle-1)
    after 
	3000 ->
	    io:format("Verse not received after 3 seconds"
                      " - re-starting singer~n"),
	    spawn_singer(Bottle),
	    sing_verse(Bottle)
    end.

Starter

Good places to start on trapexit.org

HowTo documents - Tutorials and Guides for Erlang developers
Erlang Cookbook - A collection of Erlang solutions to specific problems
Erlang Concepts - Articles dealing with specific Erlang aspects
Erlang Best Practices - Articles dealing with best practices in Erlang
Erlang Articles - Articles of interest to Erlang developers and testers
ErlangJobs - Erlang and Erlang related Jobs
Links to Erlang related sites outside Trapexit
RSS Feeds related to Erlang, including blogs and software development