Using the project

Run the program

Your Gleam program can be run with the gleam run terminal command.

It will run the main function in the module with the same name as your project. This function is generated for you by default for new projects.

Run the tests

The tests for your project can be run by the gleam test command.

This command will run the main function in the module with the same name as your project but with _test added to the end. For example, if your project is called satsuma it will run satsuma_test.main.

You may want to use a test framework such as gleeunit to help you write and run your test code.

Add dependencies

New dependency packages can be added using the gleam add command.

# Add gleam_http as a dependency
gleam add gleam_http

# Add gleeunit as a dev-dependency
gleam add gleeunit --dev

Run an Erlang shell

An interactive Erlang shell can be started using the gleam shell command.

gleam shell
#   Compiling my_project
#    Compiled in 0.53s
#     Running Erlang shell
# Erlang/OTP 24 [erts-12.1.5] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [ds:8:8:10] [async-threads:1]
# 
# Eshell V12.1.5  (abort with ^G)
# 1>

Here we can try out our functions by typing them in:

1> my_fantastic_library:main().
# <<"Hello from my_fantastic_library">>

It’s important to remember that this is an Erlang shell rather than a Gleam shell, so Erlang syntax must be used. Don’t forget to put a . at the end of the expression otherwise the shell won’t do anything.