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Introduction
introduction.xml
This section is the Erlang reference manual. It describes the
Erlang programming language.
Purpose
The focus of the Erlang reference manual is on the language itself,
not the implementation of it. The language constructs are described in
text and with examples rather than formally specified. This is
to make the manual more readable.
The Erlang reference manual is not intended as a tutorial.
Information about implementation of Erlang can, for example, be found,
in the following:
System Principles
Starting and stopping, boot scripts, code loading,
error logging,
creating target systems
Efficiency Guide
Memory consumption, system limits
ERTS User's Guide
Crash dumps,
drivers
Prerequisites
It is assumed that the reader has done some programming and
is familiar with concepts such as data types and programming
language syntax.
Document Conventions
In this section, the following terminology is used:
- A sequence is one or more items. For example, a
clause body consists of a sequence of expressions. This
means that there must be at least one expression.
- A list is any number of items. For example,
an argument list can consist of zero, one, or more arguments.
If a feature has been added recently, in Erlang 5.0/OTP R7 or
later, this is mentioned in the text.
Complete List of BIFs
For a complete list of BIFs, their arguments and return values,
see erlang(3)
manual page in ERTS.
Reserved Words
The following are reserved words in Erlang:
after and andalso band begin bnot bor bsl bsr bxor case catch
cond div end fun if let not of or orelse receive rem try
when xor