autocompile

autocompile automatically recompiles your Erlang modules for you.

Just start the application and it will watch for file modifications in your current directory. Modules will be recompiled with the same compile options.

application:ensure_all_started(autocompile).

When starting, you should see this message:

[autocompile] [info]: Started

When a module has been recompiled, you should see this message:

[autocompile] [info]: Module my_module was sucessfully recompiled

Requirements:

• For Linux: inotify-tools
  • sudo apt-get install inotify-tools

Bonus for Erlang beginners

You'll need to have autocompile and its dependency fs in your Erlang code path. I'd suggest that you create a directory named erl_libs in your home directory and use rebar to fetch and compile autocompile. Then add the lib directory to the environment variable ERL_LIBS.

~/erl_libs/rebar.config:

{deps_dir, "lib"}.

{ deps
, [
    { autocompile, ""
    , {git, "https://github.com/JYZR/autocompile.git", {branch, "master"}}
    }
  ]
}.

rebar get-deps compile

Set ERL_LIBS:

if [ -z $ERL_LIBS ]; then
    export ERL_LIBS=~/erl_libs/lib
else
    export ERL_LIBS=~/erl_libs/lib:$ERL_LIBS
fi

If you're as lazy as me, you could also make sure that autocompile is automatically started. Add a file name .erlang to your home directory and it will be evaluated every time Erlang is started. If you don't always want to start it, check the node name first.

~/.erlang:

case node() of
  my_node@localhost -> application:ensure_all_started(autocompile);
  _                 -> ok
end.

First Aid

inotify watches limit [Linux]

Failed to watch /home/jyzr/my_app; upper limit on inotify watches reached!
Please increase the amount of inotify watches allowed per user via '/proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches'.

How to increase the value:

Temporary:

sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=32768

Permanent:

Add a line to /etc/sysctl.conf:

fs.inotify.max_user_watches=32768