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-rw-r--r--erts/doc/src/escript.xml24
1 files changed, 23 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/erts/doc/src/escript.xml b/erts/doc/src/escript.xml
index 1d5d280338..9b0d42185e 100644
--- a/erts/doc/src/escript.xml
+++ b/erts/doc/src/escript.xml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
<comref>
<header>
<copyright>
- <year>2007</year><year>2016</year>
+ <year>2007</year><year>2017</year>
<holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>
@@ -35,6 +35,28 @@
<p><c>escript</c> provides support for running short Erlang programs
without having to compile them first, and an easy way to retrieve the
command-line arguments.</p>
+
+ <p>It is possible to bundle <c>escript</c>(s) with an Erlang
+ runtime system to make it self-sufficient and relocatable. In such
+ a standalone system, the <c>escript</c>(s) should be located in
+ the top <c>bin</c> directory of the standalone system and given
+ <c>.escript</c> as file extension. Further the (built-in)
+ <c>escript</c> program should be copied to the same directory and
+ given the scripts original name (without the <c>.escript</c>
+ extension). This will enable use of the bundled Erlang runtime
+ system.</p>
+
+ <p>The (built-in) <c>escript</c> program first determines which
+ Erlang runtime system to use and then starts it to execute your
+ script. Usually the runtime system is located in the same Erlang
+ installation as the <c>escript</c> program itself. But for
+ standalone systems with one or more escripts it may be the case
+ that the <c>escript</c> program in your path actually starts the
+ runtime system bundled with the escript. This is intentional, and
+ typically happens when the standalone system <c>bin</c> directory is not
+ in the execution path (as it may cause its <c>erl</c> program to
+ override the desired one) and the <c>escript</c>(s) are referred to via
+ symbolic links from a <c>bin</c> directory in the path.</p>
</description>
<funcs>