20170420_console.md

Elixir - Tip: Console helper

I often start an iex -S mix, either in development mode on my local machine or in production mode on the production server to debug a problem (in which case it's not an iex -S mix but a remote console).

When I do this, I always need to alias a lot of stuff or type a lot of prefixed modules, which is tiresome.

To avoid this, I have made a Console helper module in most of my projects.

It looks something like this

# lib/my_app/console.ex
defmodule MyApp.Console do
  @moduledoc """
  Makes it easier to work in a console.

  Usage:

      use MyApp.Console

  Aliases common modules and imports Ecto.Query
  """

  defmacro __using__([]) do
    quote do
      alias MyApp.Account
      alias MyApp.User
      # ... more commonly used modules here

      alias MyApp.Repo
      import Ecto.Query
      import Ecto.Changeset
      :ok
    end
  end
end

When I then start an interactive shell, I just use MyApp.Console and everything is aliased for me.