Warning
There is a built-in Elixir mode with tree-sitter support from Emacs 30+ that can also be used with Emacs 29
This repository is for an older elixir-mode built with SMIE (Simple Minded Indentation Engine) which is not
as advanced as tree-sitter for a language like Elixir.
Elixir Mode
Provides font-locking, indentation and navigation support for the Elixir programming language.
Installation
elixir-mode
is available on NON-GNU ELPA,
MELPA STABLE and MELPA.
Via package.el
package.el
is the built-in package manager in Emacs.
You can install elixir-mode
with the following command:
M-x package-install [RET] elixir-mode [RET]
or by adding this bit of Emacs Lisp code to your Emacs initialization file
(.emacs
or init.el
):
(unless (package-installed-p 'elixir-mode)
(package-install 'elixir-mode))
If the installation doesn't work try refreshing the package list:
M-x package-refresh-contents [RET]
Keep in mind that MELPA packages are built automatically from
the master
branch, meaning bugs might creep in there from time to
time. Never-the-less, installing from MELPA is the recommended way of
obtaining Elixir-Mode
.
MELPA Stable contains packages released from our tags.
Via use-package
Since Emacs 29, use-package
is a built-in feature. For versions prior to 29
one can also install it from MELPA (and MELPA Stable).
To install elixir-mode using use-package
one can:
(use-package elixir-mode
:ensure t)
Usage
Interactive Commands
Command (For the M-x prompt.) |
Description |
---|---|
elixir-mode |
Switches to elixir-mode. |
elixir-mode-open-github |
Open the GitHub page for Elixir. |
elixir-mode-open-elixir-home |
Go to Elixir README in the browser. |
elixir-mode-open-docs-master |
Open the Elixir documentation for the master. |
elixir-mode-open-docs-stable |
Open the Elixir documentation for the latest stable release. |
elixir-mode-show-version |
Print version info for elixir-mode. |
Configuration
Any file that matches the glob *.ex[s]
or *.elixir
is
automatically opened in elixir-mode, but you can change this
functionality easily.
;; Highlights *.elixir2 as well
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.elixir2\\'" . elixir-mode))
Keymapping
Keymaps can be added to the elixir-mode-map
variable.
Pairing
Smartparens has direct support for Elixir.
Alternatively, if you want to use ruby-end-mode
, you can add the following to your elixir-mode-hook
:
(add-to-list 'elixir-mode-hook
(defun auto-activate-ruby-end-mode-for-elixir-mode ()
(set (make-variable-buffer-local 'ruby-end-expand-keywords-before-re)
"\\(?:^\\|\\s-+\\)\\(?:do\\)")
(set (make-variable-buffer-local 'ruby-end-check-statement-modifiers) nil)
(ruby-end-mode +1)))
Notes
This package is tested only with a single version of OTP and 3 versions of Elixir. Please, always report versions (Emacs, Elixir and Erlang/OTP) when raising issues.
Elixir Tooling Integration
You can use web-mode.el to edit elixir templates (eex files).
mix.el provides a minor mode for integration with Mix, a build tool that ships with Elixir.
exunit.el provides ExUnit
integration.
Elixir Format
This mode can call mix for formatting code. When inside an elixir buffer, just type M-x elixir-format
.
To automate that, you can add this command to the before-save
hook.
;; Create a buffer-local hook to run elixir-format on save, only when we enable elixir-mode.
(add-hook 'elixir-mode-hook
(lambda () (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'elixir-format nil t)))
To use a .formatter.exs
you can either set elixir-format-arguments
globally to a path like this:
(setq elixir-format-arguments (list "--dot-formatter" "/path/to/.formatter.exs"))
or you set elixir-format-arguments
in a hook like this:
(add-hook 'elixir-format-hook (lambda ()
(if (projectile-project-p)
(setq elixir-format-arguments
(list "--dot-formatter"
(concat (locate-dominating-file buffer-file-name ".formatter.exs") ".formatter.exs")))
(setq elixir-format-arguments nil))))
In this example we use Projectile to determine if we are in a project and then set elixir-format-arguments
accordingly.
Please note that this code snippet may cause unhappiness if there is no .formatter.exs
file available.
Tips & Tricks
Prettify symbols
Emacs supports font ligatures. For enabling it for Elixir you can add it to your configuration:
(add-hook
'elixir-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(push '(">=" . ?\u2265) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("<=" . ?\u2264) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("!=" . ?\u2260) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("==" . ?\u2A75) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("=~" . ?\u2245) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("<-" . ?\u2190) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("->" . ?\u2192) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("<-" . ?\u2190) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("|>" . ?\u25B7) prettify-symbols-alist)))
;; Or if you use use-packge
(use-package elixir-mode
:hook (elixir-mode . (lambda ()
(push '(">=" . ?\u2265) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("<=" . ?\u2264) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("!=" . ?\u2260) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("==" . ?\u2A75) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("=~" . ?\u2245) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("<-" . ?\u2190) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("->" . ?\u2192) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("<-" . ?\u2190) prettify-symbols-alist)
(push '("|>" . ?\u25B7) prettify-symbols-alist))))
Formatting
If you have issues with the formatter provided by this package, you can try using the format function of language servers. Elixir-ls supports this.
One way to configure this with eglot
and use-package
would be:
(use-package elixir-mode
:hook (elixir-mode . eglot-ensure)
(before-save . eglot-format))
Syntax highlighting for LiveView (and similar techniques for other syntaxes)
When you need different major modes in the SAME buffer, Emacs do not provide a standard way.
There is an external package that can help here by adding more than one major mode called poly-mode
.
A possible configuration would be:
;; Assumes web-mode and elixir-mode are already set up
;;
(use-package polymode
:mode ("\.ex$" . poly-elixir-web-mode)
:config
(define-hostmode poly-elixir-hostmode :mode 'elixir-mode)
(define-innermode poly-liveview-expr-elixir-innermode
:mode 'web-mode
:head-matcher (rx line-start (* space) "~H" (= 3 (char "\"'")) line-end)
:tail-matcher (rx line-start (* space) (= 3 (char "\"'")) line-end)
:head-mode 'host
:tail-mode 'host
:allow-nested nil
:keep-in-mode 'host
:fallback-mode 'host)
(define-polymode poly-elixir-web-mode
:hostmode 'poly-elixir-hostmode
:innermodes '(poly-liveview-expr-elixir-innermode))
)
(setq web-mode-engines-alist '(("elixir" . "\\.ex\\'")))
History
This mode is based on the Emacs mode by secondplanet.
Contributing
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on how to contribute to this project.
License
Copyright © 2011-2017 Samuel Tonini, Matt DeBoard, Andreas Fuchs, secondplanet and contributors.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3