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<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">
<chapter>
<header>
<copyright>
<year>2003</year><year>2015</year>
<holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>
The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
under the License.
</legalnotice>
<title>Functions</title>
<prepared></prepared>
<docno></docno>
<date></date>
<rev></rev>
<file>functions.xml</file>
</header>
<section>
<marker id="syntax"></marker>
<title>Function Declaration Syntax</title>
<p>A <em>function declaration</em> is a sequence of function
clauses separated by semicolons, and terminated by period (.).</p>
<p>A <em>function clause</em> consists of a clause head and a
clause body, separated by <c>-></c>.</p>
<p>A clause <em>head</em> consists of the function name, an
argument list, and an optional guard sequence
beginning with the keyword <c>when</c>:</p>
<pre>
Name(Pattern11,...,Pattern1N) [when GuardSeq1] ->
Body1;
...;
Name(PatternK1,...,PatternKN) [when GuardSeqK] ->
BodyK.</pre>
<p>The function name is an atom. Each argument is a pattern.</p>
<p>The number of arguments <c>N</c> is the <em>arity</em> of
the function. A function is uniquely defined by the module name,
function name, and arity. That is, two functions with the same
name and in the same module, but with different arities are two
different functions.</p>
<p>A function named <c>f</c> in the module <c>m</c> and with arity
<c>N</c> is often denoted as <c>m:f/N</c>.</p>
<p>A clause <em>body</em> consists of a sequence of expressions
separated by comma (,):</p>
<pre>
Expr1,
...,
ExprN</pre>
<p>Valid Erlang expressions and guard sequences are described in
<seealso marker="expressions">Expressions</seealso>.</p>
<p><em>Example:</em></p>
<pre>
fact(N) when N>0 -> % first clause head
N * fact(N-1); % first clause body
fact(0) -> % second clause head
1. % second clause body</pre>
</section>
<section>
<marker id="eval"></marker>
<title>Function Evaluation</title>
<p>When a function <c>m:f/N</c> is called, first the code for
the function is located. If the function cannot be found, an
<c>undef</c> runtime error occurs. Notice that the function
must be exported to be visible outside the module it is defined
in.</p>
<p>If the function is found, the function clauses are scanned
sequentially until a clause is found that fulfills both of
the following two conditions:</p>
<list type="ordered">
<item>The patterns in the clause head can be successfully
matched against the given arguments.</item>
<item>The guard sequence, if any, is true.</item>
</list>
<p>If such a clause cannot be found, a <c>function_clause</c>
runtime error occurs.</p>
<p>If such a clause is found, the corresponding clause body is
evaluated. That is, the expressions in the body are evaluated
sequentially and the value of the last expression is returned.</p>
<p>Consider the function <c>fact</c>:</p>
<pre>
-module(m).
-export([fact/1]).
fact(N) when N>0 ->
N * fact(N-1);
fact(0) ->
1.</pre>
<p>Assume that you want to calculate the factorial for 1:</p>
<pre>
1> <input>m:fact(1).</input></pre>
<p>Evaluation starts at the first clause. The pattern <c>N</c> is
matched against argument 1. The matching succeeds and
the guard (<c>N>0</c>) is true, thus <c>N</c> is bound to 1, and
the corresponding body is evaluated:</p>
<pre>
<input>N * fact(N-1)</input> => (N is bound to 1)
<input>1 * fact(0)</input></pre>
<p>Now, <c>fact(0)</c> is called, and the function clauses are
scanned sequentially again. First, the pattern <c>N</c> is
matched against 0. The matching succeeds, but the guard
(<c>N>0</c>) is false. Second, the pattern 0 is matched against
0. The matching succeeds and the body is evaluated:</p>
<pre>
<input>1 * fact(0)</input> =>
<input>1 * 1</input> =>
<input>1</input></pre>
<p>Evaluation has succeed and <c>m:fact(1)</c> returns 1.</p>
<p>If <c>m:fact/1</c> is called with a negative number as
argument, no clause head matches. A <c>function_clause</c>
runtime error occurs.</p>
</section>
<section>
<title>Tail recursion</title>
<p>If the last expression of a function body is a function call,
a <em>tail recursive</em> call is done.
This is to ensure that no system
resources, for example, call stack, are consumed. This means
that an infinite loop can be done if it uses tail-recursive
calls.</p>
<p><em>Example:</em></p>
<pre>
loop(N) ->
io:format("~w~n", [N]),
loop(N+1).</pre>
<p>The earlier factorial example can act as a counter-example.
It is not tail-recursive, since a multiplication is done
on the result of the recursive call to <c>fact(N-1)</c>.</p>
</section>
<section>
<title>Built-In Functions (BIFs)</title>
<p>BIFs are implemented in C code in
the runtime system. BIFs do things that are difficult or impossible
to implement in Erlang. Most of the BIFs belong
to the module <c>erlang</c> but there are also BIFs
belonging to a few other modules, for example <c>lists</c> and
<c>ets</c>.</p>
<p>The most commonly used BIFs belonging to <c>erlang(3)</c> are
<em>auto-imported</em>. They do not need to be prefixed with
the module name. Which BIFs that are auto-imported is specified in the
<seealso marker="erts:erlang">erlang(3)</seealso> module in ERTS.
For example, standard-type conversion BIFs like
<c>atom_to_list</c> and BIFs allowed in guards can be called
without specifying the module name.</p>
<p><em>Examples:</em></p>
<pre>
1> <input>tuple_size({a,b,c}).</input>
3
2> <input>atom_to_list('Erlang').</input>
"Erlang"</pre>
<p>Notice that it is normally the set of auto-imported BIFs
that are referred to when talking about 'BIFs'.</p>
</section>
</chapter>
