Start with a Project
Last modified: 02 August 2022warning
The following is only valid when the Erlang plugin is installed and enabled.
Create New
Once you have set up the environment, you can proceed with creating a new Erlang project in IntelliJ IDEA from scratch.
New Pure Erlang Project
From the main menu, select File | New | Project.
In the dialog that appears, choose Erlang as the project's base.
Ignore the additional frameworks at this point and click Next.
Make sure the correct SDK is selected and click Next.
Give your project a name and choose where to save it. Click Finish to close the dialog.
New Rebar3 Project
Instead of creating a pure Erlang project, you may want to use Rebar3 to generate it from one of the built-in templates.
It can be done from within the IDE provided that Rebar3 was installed and added to system PATH:
Open the Terminal tool window Alt+F12
Enter the following command:
$rebar3 new app myAwesomeProject
This will generate a new project called myAwesomeProject from the built-in Rebar3 template called app.
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note
Additional configuration may be required for Windows users who want to use the standard command line or PowerShell to run
rebar3
commands.
Once generated, the project needs to be imported into the IDE so that you can work with it. See next section for details.
Import Existing
If you already have an Erlang project, you can follow the steps from this guide to import it into IntelliJ IDEA.
Import Rebar Project
note
If your project was created using Rebar3, make sure you choose its rebar.config build file as a source.
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Project Structure
Project View
For a common Erlang project created with Rebar3, the overall structure will look like this in IntelliJ IDEA:
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Parse Transform Settings
Parse transformations are Erlang modules that rewrite other Erlang modules using different semantics of the Erlang syntax.
You can set your Erlang module's global parse transforms in the Project Structure Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S dialog, Modules | <module name> | Erlang section:
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tip
Helpful resources on parse transforms:
Series of blog posts on how to use parse transform capabilities of Erlang to write a macro processor for Erlang, by Philip Robinson
Erlang parse transforms made easy: the parse_trans application, by Ulf Wiger
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