Elixir in Emacs: UndefinedFunctionError: module is not available

Question

I have created a mix project and for learning purposes, am putting all my three files in the lib folder: Client1.ex, Client2.ex and MyLibrary.ex. I have identical code in Client1.ex and Client2.ex

defmodule Project.Client1
#nothing
end
IO.puts(inspect(Project.MyLibrary.myFunc()))

When I run this in emacs using alchemist-compile-this-buffer,the above code works for Client1 but not for Client2. I get the error

elixirc /Users/../lib/Client2.ex
lib/Client2.ex:1: warning: redefining module Project.Client2


== Compilation error on file lib/Client2.ex ==
** (UndefinedFunctionError) undefined function: Project.MyLibrary.myFunc/0 (module Project.MyLibrary is not available)
    Project.MyLibrary.myFunc()
    lib/Client2.ex:10: (file)
    (elixir) lib/kernel/parallel_compiler.ex:95: anonymous fn/4 in Kernel.ParallelCompiler.spawn_compilers/8

Things I have observed:

Running mix compile works for Client2
Client2.beam is not created in the lib folder like the others BUT is in the project root folder which contains the lib folder.

tonini tonini · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-12T21:09:20

Thanks for using Alchemist, let me try to help you with the issues you encountered.

The alchemist-compile-this-buffer function is part of alchemist-compile module. The alchemist-compile module runs all compilations with elixirc and that always in the default-directory where your current-buffer-file is. alchemist-compile brings functionality to compile on-the-fly single files outside of mix based projects. So, BEAM files will always lie there where the default-directory and the current-buffer-file is.

So, in your case and when you create new Elixir project with mix you always need to use the alchemist-mix module. alchemist-mix-compile which runs mix compile will run the compilation in context of the Elixir project and will put BEAM files where they belongs under the _builds directory in your Elixir project root directory.

I hope that explanation helps you.

If you have more questions, please just call me on the #elixir-lang IRC channel on Freenode. You can just drop message, I'm always connected. ;-)

My username is: tonini

Cheers

Samuel

Elixir in Emacs: UndefinedFunctionError: module is not available

2 Answers