Compiling Erlang Documentation

If you install Erlang with kerl (which asdf does), you can configure it to build its documentation by setting the environment variable KERL_BUILD_DOCS to yes.

By default, kerl will build HTML docs (configurable via KERL_INSTALL_HTMLDOCS), Man pages (configurable via KERL_INSTALL_MANPAGES) and, thanks to EEP 48 (requiring OTP 23+), embedded documentation that you can access via the REPL (erl, and even iex for Elixir) and LSP. For Elixirists, we can now use the h/1 IEx helper on Erlang modules and functions.

iex> h :ets.insert
h :ets.insert

                                    insert/2

  @spec insert(table, objectOrObjects) :: true
        when table: table(), objectOrObjects: tuple() | [tuple()]

Inserts the object or all of the objects in list ObjectOrObjects into table
Table.

  • If the table type is set and the key of the inserted objects matches the key of
    any object in the table, the old object is replaced.

  • If the table type is ordered_set and the key of the inserted object compares
    equal to the key of any object in the table, the old object is replaced.

  • If the list contains more than one object with matching keys and the table type
    is set, one is inserted, which one is not defined. The same holds for table
    type ordered_set if the keys compare equal.

The entire operation is guaranteed to be atomic and isolated
(stdlib:ets#concurrency), even when a list of objects is inserted.

See the asdf-erlang documentation for more.