"; */ ?>

Erlang ! { me, Hello }.

send hello message to Erlang

Erlang has been around since I was 7, so by this point I had 23 years to say hello to Erlang, but just did not get to it until today.. At 10 I was busy with chess, at 15 with girls, at 20 girlfriends, at 25 I don’t remember (that was a quite frequent condition at that age), and only now at 3 o’clock in the beautiful Wednesday morning, here in one of many Chicago hotels, I can really say it outloud: “Erlang ! { me, Hello }.”, or as we all use to saying it “System.out.println( “Hello to Erlang from me” );”, or using the language of our grandparents: “Me: Hello Erlang!”

I already spent about 30 minutes playing with it – 5 minutes with erl interpreter, 5 minutes coding, and 20 minutes figuring out how the heck I can execute it from command line with passing parameters to functions. So here it goes 30 minute summary in “count yourself” number of sentences…

From “Erlang – Quick Start“, I stole a factorial (fac) function:

-module(test).
-export([fac/1]).
 
fac(0) -> 1;
fac(N) -> N * fac(N-1).

“Compile the program by typing c(test) then run it” said Erlang site, so I did:

3> c(test).
{ok,test}
4> test:fac(20).
2432902008176640000
5> test:fac(40).
815915283247897734345611269596115894272000000000
6>

What I wanted to do now is to have a more useful factorial that can actually take a number parameter and run from a command line. See, Erlang is cool with numbers, because it uses arbitrary-sized integers when it does integer arithmetic, and I wanted to see that 10000.. digit number on my screen, but I wanted to do it from command line…

Hence, reading further the Erlang’s documentation, in Erlang How To FAQ I found “How to run an Erlang program directly from the unix shell:”

        matthias >erl -compile hello
        matthias >erl -noshell -s hello hello_world -s init stop
        hello, world

Great, I thought, let’s run my factorial function then:

$ erl -noshell -s test fac 4 -s init stop
{"init terminating in do_boot",{undef,[{test,'test:fac',[['4']]},{init,start_it,1},{init,start_em,1}]}}
 
Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
init terminating in do_boot ()

I tried many different combinations, prefixes, suffixes, but nothing seemed to work. Google (at this time) did not really help, and I spend another 5-10 minutes by going to actually study the language from multiple online resources I could find. After aggregating the knowledge, here goes a solution:

-module( matematika ).		% module name = file name
-export( [factorial/1] ).		% exporting a factorial function, that takes exactly 1 argument
 
% public, since exported above
factorial( [CommandLineParameter] ) ->
 
	% converting the input parameter to an integer, so we can use it in (private) fac below
	Number = list_to_integer( atom_to_list( CommandLineParameter ) ),
	FactorialResult = fac( Number ),
 
	io:format( "~w! = ~w~n" ,[Number, FactorialResult] ),			% pretty much like printf in C
	init:stop().											% need to explicitly stop it
 
% private, since not exported
fac( 0 ) -> 1;					% if 0, then return 1
fac( N ) -> N * fac( N - 1 ).			% else return fac of N minus 1

(I put %comments above for myself, so I can make sense of it tomorrow)

Let’s run it now:

$ erl -noshell -s matematika factorial 10

10! = 3628800

Awesome! My first stolen and adapted Erlang creation! Let’s see that factorial of .. let’s say 2500 :)

$ erl -noshell -s matematika factorial 2500


2500!=162888842416926354689668105747439663365399942834366593333
761170598517395953006666015681181171091114301822189949967063775
407379642957266480360849144773982699565766503949953039081536069
313589385624248687168633365117877728319632346514905978458047074
520807127737619451831790023662437656379915366899692425817099473
955735537991551620610205879561628364536090561091825520933523438
440298824173752468219542814600203368965255916069562338913433294
969546310263930229454748650689662592679638050717072642347493989
468072742236518740460239946352245451040613097756653973305720645
026457997934905356924399618617581860376174835804874205168542257
467008667252720784248969925977883224857503131037675382806351903
130554386521130700598953600694590165036980214021274304347037205
774546036842214862077129715702791830982471445806697511922924126
875707763824427831458131252725129871400134654305773736954160374
386043307314954277237484986013167770729137200202006247592856875
946971039429028314584331171481048021391502558449541563727025722
429319793486407721042419353225446943557177410280427218310573933
839468119502298621190184926686015339505156759957938618691111894
105137524428488796590017749394464101657140531047449031317150211
285312051145217906000448322292856476064080179041772517805638616
704522178956984018390162683438304694297727727823412207694734265
878202872900194730775246958252155279043555763913056000888393253
937210136778443737969895720575345197710315491879632577212080296
732791524306529332768002582234532193839787438122696823349137174
760687670811121707247122877205618078452290605963728534389393406
703483582596248272104119965697657195713053485619074455216492879
719763758474871783557654928157780691218383646855409834599921063
373144702996594627688077741944550267192758309026313016206320680
530057452746436412708183108931890404685083431502083760663324657
349706015263327982666486689576849283883469142513936741022368381
903094157650249629927012864342540407330646247523995884057015184
717062826800920338962166558742062917836339935141477580556616102
759761599188076139416375666490347795870693771994555537476372358
925544445791134700553339780029989334462364486499563386435498770
970697902521176942715439141796399164240719914064566047833333979
658667979051009689054775584486605430424545544714920455985028492
775158386405002083658607397637102066859718496781089357617987825
390662781413816362946370821897681257991937027979675382384665624
733872791767882787048074812304136442761397202291044563080832580
377638267813956876382413025080202917826793584257121650412123520
8825054296165661030756208371742686402825404804558501327839670
731298809850930719924452525141301863810787127140637580161952796
470931012669932742565234239616031337114081022694921413641260386
424388652301371711255153268827616495293442715781089495795404683
744579676459521729702016200147034375778237008585095355232063710
088291957991216310837002831440396924100323429063456827045895594
917126433490705797776990807538192111396635158758664846773837413
564155213989495350785689041240261464178518418465026963508203252
038246166655605208324074965984192733197462771017672726300923288
607540014472757890113403434211921496288437000162551272645252320
615215716654175248938850328046313070690361405371373329623736166
731299101093298365654056037733083226277004269609573104069448790
684864546219098996171110998911324197479806896470305987119560932
856582719643423019817880041224237194274668604715496198407207355
809431389490372488422206677783166941973289816036063374723748298
696836902300888969044824525828910570687623075008425420179724412
174632013134752558921448609478176626573353890791801685222886849
990731518133839408072332112603244018982882369997032825586118714
392208201914776888366261219130250913546151105147763080829651928
290074106631605007724254431488105804572887069328232683043301900
466160052172383665181738152989844063638391709547589900409420631
7468376377314153856018840069377218558903334939371343395777264
426365318130887683599836088345497158322556553595094840894654614
406383376396868199531042942079405403474627428650274595771829568
255995466465003325664472293654101201924430539079190443194487046
380416281749159026300696294947812447714612418298771332692848211
154125929312681287195951419960699391722211424311898584816200565
373258799897110855302098610980845978364362685231061369005215230
788471798866541648729889538439509890111560301062943923923769988
997147648363950708508382034563798637202146673551309938897540440
786998003118907883241416258343188784000679367284896011745823289
734561911522255979545433492376668285434347783001266108600121473
498779217963921384546755156766188951735866744108093964636023471
349527019498920540070752394649104708510770999131507315610483632
330982876174119389012968417760250231722884408641474340374893362
833795392300949100935853949419952854923937872507275773843355108
735204114864752466565493366395162830913421138498633186453324268
762572668445390770903011717202242312950408723851830364004678106
656009078222984968635868416766693788940980240045058068275614302
839043567118028698385054274108921811298084233976240006277809181
325997330000786683674194376654268377368369949823431206244095885
960702059149846318232687179678572748082487793549844548187548311
400556064744050666472476457947299489568330636742840865513804654
776149494225932236964194164784786218640251626514525549920894810
545056499250214652147224638246034892251401029945773476251196919
612592752826016419187902895630887737745713281219681141023586882
321633118519558748181198803719862314967759867112077291645583600
510531017148754676649505951293767894337326791942862414631993126
449392270145239108425380056269282654566300820253116701666036949
374826952156733286262700190206665725355635411559887439781283350
874285109852181238143636938256407098028863909426094536431398247
852543854757537942646791855344906017659039384905122375234004320
416026882823286655632286053156546748028668750196973803337027786
891236116711910780819707846081218679760982625290715984522150204
916425232591826590887410401320568045430558979943145617193692059
705465421939829497586908594951642657711985208269462425640322372
314303330475772671495014049400654155619566942191085558759378416
790160458835621823599743742665152596726797511419955382867531134
959437002011587472231152746047820309830039699792147174883667855
760287780241438038062954704157981072533480950728570115662921849
376586317866043009133972729549191452640224225320222817060812601
144385749818368781373067888827129923654130858902252804622762751
192618314790547633755929057344102888830740499275949997990026813
425216747458578654838647236496508876074530642629714199563056483
975900965902520059913821418901761372054615449749487163282905699
188377895083782877246773269374715942460000414707728522199826307
191493572953655749106244370767768017669677808468909623091993519
298870943235516530358122980923396832082235382703392292864000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Now, THAT is cool!