Question

A newbie question: I wrote my first rebar based erlang application. I want to configure some basic properites like server host etc. Where is the best place to put them and how should I load them into the app?

Answer 1

The next steps are to make a release and create a node in it. A node runs your application in a standalone Erlang VM. A good starting point for creating a release using rebar:

Erlang Application Management with Rebar

Once you have created a release. The configuration properties for all applications in your node can then be added to

{your-app}/{release}/files/sys.config

You can read individual properties as follows:

Val = application:get_env(APP, KEY)

Alternatively, all properties for your application can be read as

Config = application:get_all_env(APP)

In sys.config, properties can be added as a proplist.

Example:

    {myapp,
      [
       {port, 1234},
       {pool_size, 5}
      ]
    }