Search documentation of syntax_tools

# Erlang Syntax and Metaprogramming tools

View Source

## Overview

This package contains modules for handling abstract syntax trees (ASTs) in Erlang, in a way that is compatible with the "abstract format" parse trees of the stdlib module `erl_parse`, together with utilities for reading source files, pretty-printing syntax trees, and doing metaprogramming in Erlang.

The abstract layer (defined in `erl_syntax`) is nicely structured and the node types are context-independent. The layer makes it possible to transparently attach source-code comments and user annotations to nodes of the tree. Using the abstract layer makes applications less sensitive to changes in the `erl_parse` data structures, only requiring the `erl_syntax` module to be up-to-date.

The pretty printer `erl_prettypr` is implemented on top of the library module `prettypr`: this is a powerful and flexible generic pretty printing library, which is also distributed separately.

For a short demonstration of parsing and pretty-printing, simply compile the included module assets/demo.erl, and execute `demo:run()` from the Erlang shell. It will compile the remaining modules and give you further instructions.

← Previous Page Syntax_Tools Release Notes