10 killer Elixir Tips #5

1. Fetching the default Mix Compilers list

iex> Mix.compilers

Returns the default compilers used by the Mix tool. The output will look something similar to [:yecc, :leex, :erlang, :elixir, :xref, :app] .

It can be used in your mix.exs to prepend or append new compilers to Mix:

# mix.exs

def project do
 [compilers: Mix.compilers ++ [:gettext]
end

2. Picking out the elements in List

We all know that a proper list is a combination of head and tail like [head | tail]. We can use the same principle for picking out the elements in the list like the following way…

iex> [first|[second|[third|[fourth|_rest ]]]]= [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

iex> first
1
iex> {second,third,fourth}
{2, 3, 4}

# This is much better for picking elements
iex> [first,second, third, fourth | _rest]= [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]

You will get MatchError Exceptoin if the Elements in the lists are miss matched.

3. get_in /Acess.all()

We all know that the get_in function is used to extract the key which is deeper inside the map by providing the list with keys like a following way…

iex> user=%{"name"=>{"first_name"=>"blackode","last_name"=>"john" }}
%{"name" => %{"first_name" => "blackode", "last_name" => "john"}}

iex > get_in user,["name","first_name"]
"blackode"

But, if there is a list of maps [maps] where you have to extract first_name from the each map, generally we go for Enum . We can also achieve this by using the get_in and Access.all()

iex> users=
       [
         %{"user" => %{"first_name" => "john","age" => 23}},
         %{"user" => %{"first_name" => "hari","age" => 22}},
         %{"user" => %{"first_name" => "mahesh","age" => 21}}
       ]
# that is a list of maps

iex> get_in users, [Access.all(), "user", "age"]
[23, 22, 21]

iex> get_in users, [Access.all(), "user", "first_name"]
["john", "hari", "mahesh"]

iex> list = [%{name: "john"}, %{name: "mary"}, %{age: 34}]
[%{name: "john"}, %{name: "mary"}, %{age: 34}]

iex> get_in(list, [Access.all(), :name])
["john", "mary", nil]

Did you observe that in the above lines of code, the key name is missing in some of the maps. So, it returns nil for key which is not in the map.

iex> get_in(%{name: "blackode"}, [Access.all(), :name])

If you execute above line you will get the following error

Hope you observed that it is raising error while you try to pass the map instead of a list.

However, you can change the position of the Access.all() in the list. But the before key should return a list.

Deep Dive

We can also use the Access.all() with functions like update_in , get_and_update_in, etc…

For instance, given a user with a list of books, here is how to deeply traverse the map and convert all book names to uppercase:

iex> user =
       %{ name: "john",
          books: [
                   %{name: "my soul",type: "tragedy"},
                   %{name: "my heart", type: "romantic"},
                   %{name: "my enemy", type: "horror"}
                 ]
        }

iex> update_in user, [:books, Access.all(), :name], &String.upcase/1
%{
  books: [
    %{name: "MY SOUL", type: "tragedy"},
    %{
      name: "MY HEART",
      type: "romantic"
    },
    %{name: "MY ENEMY", type: "horror"}
  ],
  name: "john"
}

iex> get_in user, [:books, Access.all(), :name]                              
["my soul", "my heart", "my enemy"]

Here, user is not a list unlike in the previous examples where we passed the users as a list. But, we changed the position of Access.all() and inside the list of keys [:books, Access.all(), :name] , the value of the key :books should return the list, other wise it raises an error.

4 . Data Comprehension along with filters

We achieve the data comprehension through for x <- [1,2,3],do: x+1. But, we can also add the comprehension along with filter.

General usage

iex> for x <- [1,2,3,4], do: x+1
[2,3,4,5]
# this is how we use in general lets think out of the box

With filters

Here, I am using two lists of numbers and cross product over the lists and filtering out the product which is a odd number.

iex> for x <- [1,2,3,4], y <- [5,6,7,8], rem(x*y, 2) == 1 do
       {x, y, x*y}
     end
[
  {1, 5, 5},
  {1, 7, 7},
  {3, 5, 15},
  {3, 7, 21}
]

#here rem(x*y,2)==1 is acting as a filter

5. Comprehension with binary strings

Comprehension with binary is little different. You supposed to wrap inside <<>>

Lets check that…

iex> b_string = <<"blackode">>
"blackode"

iex> for << x <- b_string >>, do: x+1
'cmbdlpef'

Here, I am just printing out the letter after every letter in the “blackode”

Did you observe that x <- b_string is just changed something like << x <- b_string >> to make the sense.

6. Advanced Comprehension IO.stream

Here, we are taking the Elixir comprehension to the next level.

for x <- IO.stream(:stdio,:line),
         into: IO.stream(:stdio, :line),
         do: String.upcase(x)

Basically, IO.stream(:stdio,:line) will the read a line input from the keyboard.

iex(10)> for x <- IO.stream(:stdio,:line),into: IO.stream(:stdio, :line), do: String.upcase(x)
hello
HELLO
hi
HI
who are you?
WHO ARE YOU?
blackode
BLACKODE

^c ^c # to break

7. Single Line Multiple module aliasing

We can also alias multiple modules in one line:

alias Hello.{One,Two,Three}#The above line is same as the following alias Hello.One alias Hello.Two alias Hello.Three

8. Importing Underscore Functions

By default the functions with _ are not imported. However, you can do that by importing them with :only explicitly.

import File.Stream, only: [__build__: 3]

9. Sub string in Elixir

There is no direct sub_str function in elixir. However, you can get that by String.slice/2

iex> String.slice("blackode", 1..-1)
"lackode"

iex> String.slice("blackode", 0..-4)
"black"

10. String Concatenation

We can do the string concatenation in two ways.

iex> str1 = "hello"
iex> str2 = "blackode"

I am taking above lines of code for using in examples.

String Interpolation

iex> mystring = "#{str1}#{str2}"
helloblackode

Using <> operator

iex> mystring = str1 <> str2
helloblackode

This is the best style and recommended one.

If you are having the list of strings ["hello","blackode"] then use Enum.join

iex> mystrings=["hello","blackode"]
["hello","blackode"]

iex> mystrings |> Enum.join
"helloblackode"

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Blackode