[[elixir]]
== Elixir modules and dependencies

Erlang.mk has experimental support for building Elixir
modules as well as dependencies. In this chapter we will
cover the details and gotchas of the Elixir support.

=== Selecting Elixir

By default Elixir is disabled. This is to ensure that
there's no negative impact to normal users of Erlang.mk.

Erlang.mk can use either an Elixir installed in the
system; or use Elixir as a dependency.

Elixir will be automatically enabled when Elixir is
used as a dependency. In that case all that is required
is to depend on Elixir:

[source,make]
----
DEPS = elixir
dep_elixir_commit = v1.17.3
----

Alternatively, Erlang.mk will enable the system Elixir
installation when Elixir files are found in the top-level
project. In that case, Elixir is assumed to be in the path.

In other cases, the system Elixir installation must be
enabled manually in order to depend on Elixir applications.
Note that this is only required for Elixir-only applications,
not for applications that have both Erlang and Elixir code
(as long as you only care about the Erlang side of things).
The `ELIXIR` variable must be defined before including
Erlang.mk:

[source,make]
ELIXIR = system

Elixir can be explicitly disabled. In that case trying to
depend on Elixir applications will result in failure
during autopatch, unless the Elixir application has both
Erlang and Elixir code.

[source,make]
ELIXIR = disable

=== Elixir compilation

There are currently no options.

=== Elixir dependencies

Erlang.mk will automatically autopatch Elixir dependencies
by running Mix on the mix.exs file and producing a Makefile
using the generated metadata.

The following is an example of depending on Elixir
applications from an Erlang-only application:

[source,make]
----
DEPS = jose
dep_jose = hex 1.11.10

ELIXIR = system

include erlang.mk
----

=== Dialyzer

Dialyzer requires Elixir to be available in order to access
the AST of the Elixir beam files. In most cases it will just
work. When only enabling Elixir in a sub-application, Elixir
will not always be available, so in that case we must tell
Dialyzer where to find Elixir libraries. This can be done
by adding the following rules to the relevant Makefiles,
either as a plugin or after including Erlang.mk:

[source,make]
----
dialyze: ELIXIR_LIBS = $(dir $(shell readlink -f `which elixir`))/../lib
dialyze: ERL_LIBS = $(APPS_DIR):$(DEPS_DIR):$(ELIXIR_LIBS)
----