rebar_escript_plugin

A rebar3 plugin to package applications as executable escript.

Common problems with rebar2 escriptize addressed:

• the escript doesn't start because you forgot to provide a main/1 function in the correct module
• the escript doesn't contain the dependencies because you forgot to duplicate the deps information into escript_incl_apps
• you can't access your priv data at runtime

This is where the rebar3 rebar_escript_plugin tries to help.

Now tell me what's so terribly different from rebar2 escriptize? In fact not much, the plugin

• avoids the necessity of duplicate configuration.
• provides a default main/1 function, starting all needed applications as a normal Erlang release would.
• makes your application's priv directory contents accessible at runtime.

Usage

This branch of rebar_escript_plugin currently needs rebar3 and Erlang/OTP 17.0 or newer.

First of all the plugin must reside somewhere in your project's code path. This can be achieved by either placing the application somewhere into your lib_dir (or ERL_LIBS) or by specifying it as a project dependency in the deps section of your project's rebar.config. Ultimatively, you also need to include the plugin in your project's rebar.config. The most common configuration would look something like this:

{plugins, [{rebar_escript_plugin, "", {git, "https://github.com/tsloughter/rebar_escript_plugin.git", {branch, "master"}}}]}.
%% Only needed if your project has multiple apps or you depend on
%% special emulator args, e.g. Erlang distribution
{rebar_escript_plugin, [{main_app, module()},
                        {emu_args, string()}]}.

Now you can call escriptize from in the project:

$ rebar3 escriptize
===> Compiling app
===> Building escript