Programming Elixir ≥ 1.6

Variable Scope

Elixir is lexically scoped. The basic unit of scoping is the function body. Variables defined in a function (including its parameters) are local to that function. In addition, modules define a scope for local variables, but these are accessible only at the top level of that module, and not in functions defined in the module.

Do-block Scope

Most languages let you group together multiple code statements and treat them as a single code block. Often languages use braces for this. Here’s an example in C:

int line_no = 50;

/* ..... */

if (line_no == 50) {
  printf("new-page\f");
  line_no = 0;
}

Elixir doesn’t really have blocks such as these, but it does have ways of grouping expressions together. The most common ...