Lettuce 🥬

Lettuce is a generic server process that checks the files within an elixir project that has lettuce as a dependency and then runs iex -S mix. It initialises the state of the generic server with the .ex files inside lib and their last modified time. By default lib is used but you may specify which folders you want to be watched.

Configuration example

use Mix.Config

config :lettuce, folders_to_watch: ["apps"]
...

You can also change the refresh time to control how often the project files will be checked.

use Mix.Config

config :lettuce, refresh_time: 1500
...

Even though the start_link will throw an error if the Mix.env equals to :dev it is recommended to explicitly select the extra applications by environment in the mix file.

...
def application do
  [
    extra_applications: extra_applications(Mix.env(), [:logger, ...])
  ]
end

defp extra_applications(:dev, default), do: default ++ [:lettuce]
defp extra_applications(_, default), do: default
...

Mix compiler task options

You might send special parameters to the compiler task that lettuce runs. This is not required. In your project of parameters in config.exs:

config :lettuce,
  folders_to_watch: ["lib"],
  compiler_opts: [
    "--ignore-module-conflict",
    "--verbose"
  ]

For the available options check the Mix.Tasks.Compile.Elixir docs.

Installation

If available in Hex, the package can be installed by adding lettuce to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

...
def deps do
  [
    {:lettuce, "~> 0.3.0", only: :dev}
  ]
end
...

Inspiration

While giving Node.js lessons as part of a charity called MigraCode in El Borne, Barcelona. We were reviewing some exercises and one of the steps in the instructions was to npm install nodemon, which reminded me of all the times I was inside IEx debbuging and I had to call recompile.

Author

Josep Lluis Giralt D'Lacoste.

License

Lettuce is released under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for further details.