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merl's Introduction

Merl - Metaprograming in Erlang

NOTE: as of Erlang/OTP 18.0, Merl is included in the syntax_tools application! This repository remains here for use by those unable to upgrade to version 18.0 or later.

Merl is a more user friendly interface to the erl_syntax module in the standard library syntax_tools application, making it easy both to build new ASTs (abstract syntax trees) from scratch and to match and decompose existing ASTs.

To enable the full power of Merl, your module needs to include the Merl header file:

-include_lib("merl/include/merl.hrl").

Then, you can use ?Q(Text) macros in your code to create ASTs or match on existing ASTs. For example:

Tuple = ?Q("{foo, 42}"),
?Q("{foo, _@Number}") = Tuple,
Call = ?Q("foo:bar(_@Number)")

Calling merl:print(Call) will then print the following code:

foo:bar(42)

The ?Q macros turn the quoted code fragments into ASTs, and lifts metavariables such as _@Tuple and _@Number to the level of your Erlang code, so you can use the corresponding Erlang variables Tuple and Number directly. This is the most straightforward way to use Merl, and in many cases it's all you need.

You can even write case switches using ?Q macros as patterns. For example:

case AST of
    ?Q("{foo, _@Foo}") -> handle(Foo);
    ?Q("{bar, _@Bar}") when erl_syntax:is_integer(Bar) -> handle(Bar);
    _ -> handle_default()
end

For the full documentation, run make docs and open doc/index.html in a browser. For a quick look at the user guide without generating the HTML docs, see the file doc/overview.edoc.

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merl's Issues

Glob status of meta variable lost when using merl:tsubst

Found the culprit for my issue in 01a7785 to be that meta vars in the template are replaced from {'*', Var} to {var} in rewrite_pattern, where as it seems to work if it would have been replaced to {'*', var}.

I'll see if I can write a failing tsubst test, and get it fixed.

Here's how I came to this conclusion:

8> merl:quote("foo(Bar, Baz) -> Bar(), Baz().").
{function,1,foo,2,
          [{clause,1,
                   [{var,1,'Bar'},{var,1,'Baz'}],
                   [],
                   [{call,1,{var,1,'Bar'},[]},{call,1,{var,1,'Baz'},[]}]}]}
9> merl:quote("'@Func'(_@@Args) -> _@@Body.").  
{function,1,'@Func',1,
          [{clause,1,[{var,1,'_@@Args'}],[],[{var,1,'_@@Body'}]}]}
10> merl:template(v(9)).
{template,function,
          {attr,1,[],none},
          [[{'Func'}],
           [{template,clause,
                      {attr,1,[],none},
                      [[{'*','Args'}],[],[{'*','Body'}]]}]]}
11> merl:template_vars(v(10)).
['Args','Body','Func']
%% this is the tsubst performed in `rewrite_pattern`:
12> merl:tsubst(v(10), [{'Args', {args}}, {'Body', {body}}, {'Func', {func}}]).
{template,function,
          {attr,1,[],none},
          [[{func}],
           [{template,clause,
                      {attr,1,[],none},
                      [[{args}],[],[{body}]]}]]}
%% this is how I would like it to be (gah, besides func should not be glob here.. oh well):
13> merl:tsubst(v(10), [{'Args', {'*', args}}, {'Body', {'*', body}}, {'Func', {'*', func}}]).
{template,function,
          {attr,1,[],none},
          [[{'*',func}],
           [{template,clause,
                      {attr,1,[],none},
                      [[{'*',args}],[],[{'*',body}]]}]]}
14> merl:switch(v(8), [{v(10), fun (Args) -> Args end}]).
[{'Args',[{var,1,'Bar'},{var,1,'Baz'}]},
 {'Body',[{call,1,{var,1,'Bar'},[]},
          {call,1,{var,1,'Baz'},[]}]},
 {'Func',{tree,atom,{attr,1,[],none},foo}}]

%% fails with the template that corresponds to what is currently produced by merl_transform:
16> merl:switch(v(8), [{v(12), fun (Args) -> Args end}]). 
** exception error: merl_switch_clause
     in function  merl:switch/2 (src/merl.erl, line 742)
%% where as the one that kept the var glob status works
17> merl:switch(v(8), [{v(13), fun (Args) -> Args end}]).
[{args,[{var,1,'Bar'},{var,1,'Baz'}]},
 {body,[{call,1,{var,1,'Bar'},[]},{call,1,{var,1,'Baz'},[]}]},
 {func,[{tree,atom,{attr,1,[],none},foo}]}]
18> 

As I noted in a inline comment above, I mistakenly replaced the func meta var to be a glob as well, but I don't think it has any impact on the results shown.

Remove test target from all in Makefile

The test dependency for the all target in the Makefile forces downstream projects to run tests everytime they do 'rebar compile', e.g. in erlydtl. Please remove or create a separate PHONY target for $(OBJECTS) so that there is something else downstream projects may call!

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