Erlang: calling rr(?MODULE) from beam executable? - function

Question

I'm not entirely sure how to define an Erlang function within an Erlang module. I'm getting the following error:
11> invoke_record:invoke().
** exception error: undefined function erlang:rr/1
From this simple code trying to invoke the rr(?MODULE). from within the beam executable in order to "initialize" records so that it doesn't need to be called from the shell every time.
-module(invoke_record).
-export([invoke/0]).
-record(process, {pid,
reference="",
lifetime=0
}).
invoke() ->
erlang:rr(?MODULE).

Answer 1

The command rr("file.hrl"). is meant to be be used only in shell for debugging purposes.
As other users highlighted in their answers, the correct way to import a record (or a function) contained in a .hrl file within your erlang code consists in using the command -include("file.hrl').
Once you have included the .hrl file in your code (and usually in a module based on OTP behaviours this is done after the -export(...) part) you can refer to the Erlang record (or function) without any problem.

Answer 2

rr is a shell command. You cannot use it it compiled code.
http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/shell.html

Answer 3

If your intent is to read many record definitions in the shell, in order to facilitate the debug, you can write a file containing all needed include statements and simply invoke rr once in the shell.
in rec.hrl:
-include("include/bank.hrl").
-include("include/reply.hrl").
and in the in the shell
1> rr("rec.hrl").
[account,reply]
2>
I didn't find any way to execute this automatically, when starting the VM.

Answer 4

When working on a project, you can gather all necessary includes and other command line arguments that you want to use for that particular project in a plain text file. After having made the plain text file, you can start your shell:
erl -args_file FileName
where FileName is the name of the plain text file. Note that all command line arguments accepted by erl are allowed. See also erl Flags in the ERTS Reference Manual