1. Introduction (Reference manual)

1 Introduction

This section is the Erlang reference manual. It describes the Erlang programming language.

1.1 Purpose

The focus of the Erlang reference manual is on the language itself, not the implementation of it. The language constructs are described in text and with examples rather than formally specified. This is to make the manual more readable. The Erlang reference manual is not intended as a tutorial.

Information about implementation of Erlang can, for example, be found, in the following:

• System Principles

  Starting and stopping, boot scripts, code loading, error logging, creating target systems

• Efficiency Guide

  Memory consumption, system limits

• ERTS User's Guide

  Crash dumps, drivers

1.2 Prerequisites