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NAME

       erlang.el - Erlang mode for Emacs

DESCRIPTION

       Possibly  the  most important feature of an editor designed for programmers is the ability
       to indent a line of code in accordance with the structure of the programming language. The
       Erlang  mode does, of course, provide this feature. The layout used is based on the common
       use of the language. The mode  also  provides  things  as  syntax  highlighting,  electric
       commands,   module   name  verification,  comment  support  including  paragraph  filling,
       skeletons, tags support etc.

       In the following descriptions the use of the word Point means: "Point can be seen  as  the
       position  of  the cursor. More precisely, the point is the position between two characters
       while the cursor is drawn over the character following the point".

INDENT

       The following command are directly available for indentation.

         * TAB (erlang-indent-command) - Indents the current line of code.

         * M-C-\ (indent-region) - Indents all lines in the region.

         * M-l (indent-for-comment) - Insert a comment character to the right of the code on  the
           line (if any).

       Lines  containing comment are indented differently depending on the number of %-characters
       used:

         * Lines with one %-character is indented to  the  right  of  the  code.  The  column  is
           specified by the variable comment-column, by default column 48 is used.

         * Lines with two %-characters will be indented to the same depth as code would have been
           in the same situation.

         * Lines with three of more %-characters are indented to the left margin.

         * C-c C-q (erlang-indent-function) - Indents the current Erlang function.

         * M-x erlang-indent-clause RET
            -Indent the current Erlang clause.

         * M-x erlang-indent-current-buffer RET - Indent the entire buffer.

EDIT - FILL COMMENT

       When editing normal text in text mode you can let Emacs reformat the  text  by  the  fill-
       paragraph command. This command will not work for comments since it will treat the comment
       characters as words.

       The Erlang editing mode provides a command that knows about the Erlang  comment  structure
       and can be used to fill text paragraphs in comments. Ex:

             %% This is   just a very simple test to show
             %% how the Erlang fill
             %% paragraph   command works.

       Clearly,  the  text is badly formatted. Instead of formatting this paragraph line by line,
       let's try erlang-fill-paragraph by pressing M-q. The result is:

             %% This is just a very simple test to show how the Erlang fill
             %% paragraph command works.

EDIT - COMMENT/UNCOMMENT REGION

       C-c C-c will put comment characters at the beginning of all lines in a marked  region.  If
       you want to have two comment characters instead of one you can do C-u 2 C-c C-c

       C-c C-u will undo a comment-region command.

EDIT - MOVING THE MARKER

         * C-a  M-a    (erlang-beginning-of-function)  -  Move  the point to the beginning of the
           current or preceding Erlang function. With an numeric argument (ex C-u 2 C-a M-a)  the
           function  skips  backwards  over  this  many  Erlang functions. Should the argument be
           negative the point is moved to the beginning of a function below the current function.

         * M-C-a  (erlang-beginning-of-clause) - As above but move point to the beginning of  the
           current or preceding Erlang clause.

         * C-a M-e  (erlang-end-of-function) - Move to the end of the current or following Erlang
           function. With an numeric argument (ex C-u 2 C-a M-e)  the  function  skips  backwards
           over this many Erlang functions. Should the argument be negative the point is moved to
           the end of a function below the current function.

         * M-C-e  (erlang-end-of-clause) - As above but move point to the end of the  current  or
           following Erlang clause.

EDIT - MARKING

         * C-c  M-h  (erlang-mark-function)  - Put the region around the current Erlang function.
           The point is placed in the beginning and the mark at the end of the function.

         * M-C-h  (erlang-mark-clause) Put the region around the current Erlang clause. The point
           is placed in the beginning and the mark at the end of the function.

EDIT - FUNCTION HEADER COMMANDS

         * C-c  C-j  (erlang-generate-new-clause)  -  Create  a  new clause in the current Erlang
           function. The point is placed between the parentheses of the argument list.

         * C-c C-y (erlang-clone-arguments) - Copy the function arguments of the preceding Erlang
           clause.  This  command  is  useful  when  defining  a  new clause with almost the same
           argument as the preceding.

EDIT - ARROWS

         * C-c C-a (erlang-align-arrows) - aligns arrows after clauses inside a region.

                 Example:

                 sum(L) -> sum(L, 0).
                 sum([H|T], Sum) -> sum(T, Sum + H);
                 sum([], Sum) -> Sum.

                 becomes:

                 sum(L)          -> sum(L, 0).
                 sum([H|T], Sum) -> sum(T, Sum + H);
                 sum([], Sum)    -> Sum.

SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING

       The syntax highlighting can be activated from the Erlang menu. There  are  four  different
       alternatives:

         * Off: Normal black and white display.

         * Level  1:  Function  headers,  reserved  words,  comments,  strings, quoted atoms, and
           character constants will be colored.

         * Level 2: The above, attributes, Erlang bif:s, guards, and words in  comments  enclosed
           in single quotes will be colored.

         * Level  3:  The  above,  variables, records, and macros will be colored. (This level is
           also known as the Christmas tree level.)

TAGS

       For the tag commands to work it requires that you have generated a tag  file.  See  Erlang
       mode users guide

         * M-.    (find-tag) - Find a function definition. The default value is the function name
           under the point.

         * Find Tag (erlang-find-tag) - Like the Elisp-function `find-tag'. Capable of retrieving
           Erlang modules. Tags can be given on the forms `tag', `module:', `module:tag'.

         * M-+ (erlang-find-next-tag) - Find the next occurrence of tag.

         * M-TAB  (erlang-complete-tag)  - Perform completion on the tag entered in a tag search.
           Completes to the set of names listed in the current tags table.

         * Tags aprops (tags-apropos) - Display list of all tags in tags table REGEXP matches.

         * C-x t s (tags-search) - Search through all files listed in tags table  for  match  for
           REGEXP. Stops when a match is found.

SKELETONS

       A  skeleton  is  a  piece of pre-written code that can be inserted into the buffer. Erlang
       mode comes with a set of predefined skeletons. The skeletons can be accessed  either  from
       the  Erlang  menu  of  from  commands  named  tempo-template-erlang-*, as the skeletons is
       defined using the standard Emacs package "tempo". Here follows a brief description of  the
       available skeletons:

         * Simple  skeletons:  If,  Case,  Receive,  Receive  After,  Receive  Loop  - Basic code
           constructs.

         * Header  elements:  Module,  Author  -  These  commands  insert  lines  on   the   form
           -module(xxx).    and -author('my@home').. They can be used directly, but are also used
           as part of the full headers described below.

         * Full Headers: Small (minimum requirement), Medium (with fields for  basic  information
           about the module), and Large Header (medium header with some extra layout structure).

         * Small Server - skeleton for a simple server not using OTP.

         * Application - skeletons for the OTP application behavior

         * Supervisor - skeleton for the OTP supervisor behavior

         * Supervisor Bridge - skeleton for the OTP supervisor bridge behavior

         * gen_server - skeleton for the OTP gen_server behavior

         * gen_event - skeleton for the OTP gen_event behavior

         * gen_fsm - skeleton for the OTP gen_fsm behavior

         * Library module - skeleton for a module that does not implement a process.

         * Corba callback - skeleton for a Corba callback module.

         * Erlang test suite - skeleton for a callback module for the erlang test server.

SHELL

         * New shell (erlang-shell) - Starts a new Erlang shell.

         * C-c  C-z,  (erlang-shell-display  ) - Displays an Erlang shell, or starts a new one if
           there is no shell started.

COMPILE

         * C-c C-k, (erlang-compile) - Compiles the Erlang module in the current buffer. You  can
           also use C-u C-c C-k to debug compile the module with the debug options debug_info and
           export_all.

         * C-c C-l, (erlang-compile-display) - Display compilation output.

         * C-u C-x` Start parsing the compiler output from the beginning. This command will place
           the point on the line where the first error was found.

         * C-x`  (erlang-next-error) - Move the point on to the next error. The buffer displaying
           the compilation errors will be updated so that the current error will be visible.

MAN

       On unix you can view the manual pages in emacs. In order to find  the  manual  pages,  the
       variable  `erlang-root-dir'  should  be  bound to the name of the directory containing the
       Erlang installation. The name should not include the final slash. Practically, you  should
       add a line on the following form to your ~/.emacs,

             (setq erlang-root-dir "/the/erlang/root/dir/goes/here")

STARTING IMENU

         * M-x  imenu-add-to-menubar RET - This command will create the IMenu menu containing all
           the functions in the current buffer.The command will ask you for a suitable  name  for
           the menu. Not supported by Xemacs.

VERSION

         * M-x  erlang-version  RET  -  This  command  displays  the version number of the Erlang
           editing mode. Remember to always supply the version number when asking questions about
           the Erlang mode.