[Erlang] Use asdf erlang plugin to install multiple Erlang versions

Posted on 2021-10-23 Edited on 2024-09-12 In Programming Language , Erlang Views: Word count in article: 1.8k Reading time ≈ 2 mins.

asdf and Erlang Plugin

asdf is a single CLI tool for managing multiple runtime versions. It extend with a simple plugin system to install your favourite language: Dart, Elixir, Erlang, Flutter, Golang (Go), Java, Node.js, Python, Ruby …

This article is about how to use asdf and Erlang plugin to install multiple Erlang versions on macOS with the Homebrew package manager.

Prerequisites

Xcode Command Line Tools
The Xcode Command Line Tools Package is a small self-contained package available for download separately from Xcode and that allows you to do command line development in macOS which is consists of the macOS SDK and command-line tools such as Clang, which are installed at this

For more information about installing and using Xcode Command Line Tools, see the Xcode Command Line Tools
Homebrew
Homebrew is the Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux).

For more information about installing and using Homebrew, see the Homebrew - https://brew.sh/.

Installation

Install asdf

# Install asdf dependencies
$ brew install coreutils curl git

# Install asdf
$ brew install asdf

asdf Erlang Plugin

# Install Erlang plugin requirements
$ brew install openssl readline

# Install Erlang plugin
$ asdf plugin add erlang https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang.git

List all Erlang Version

Update Erlang plugin.

1	$ asdf plugin update erlang

List all Erlang versions.

1	$ asdf list all erlang

Install Erlang version

Install a Erlang version manually.

$ asdf install erlang 24.1.4

$ erl -version
No version set for command go
Consider adding one of the following versions in your config file at ~/.tool-versions
erlang 24.1.4

$ echo "erlang 24.1.4" >> ~/.tool-versions

$ asdf exec erl -version
Erlang (SMP,ASYNC_THREADS) (BEAM) emulator version 12.1.4