Dialyzer not compiling correctly

Check your OTP version and the version of elixir, especially which OTP version was used to compile it.

Both OTP versions need to be either greater than or equal to 21 or lesser than that. It’s not allowed to have one at 21 and one at 20.

My guess is that you have installed a current OTP and also are using a precompiled elixir version. Those are compiled with OTP 19 as far as I remember.

This is the result of asdf current:

elixir         1.7.3   (set by /home/fl4m3/.tool-versions)
erlang         21.1    (set by /home/fl4m3/.tool-versions)

Questions:

1. Could it be because these are not set as global?
2. Could it be because I no $MIX_HOME env variable set?

Checking the docs on dialyxir I found this:

Running the mix task dialyzer by default builds several PLT files:

• A core Erlang file in $MIX_HOME/dialyxir_erlang-[OTP Version].plt
• A core Elixir file in $MIX_HOME/dialyxir_erlang-[OTP Version]_elixir-[Elixir Version].plt
• A project environment specific file in _build/env/dialyze_erlang-[OTP Version]_elixir-[Elixir Version]_deps-dev.plt

Please open up iex and check the banner for the very exact version of elixir. Usually it tells you something like “compiled with”.

dialyzer_playground$ iex -S mix
Erlang/OTP 21 [erts-10.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:4:4] [ds:4:4:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe]

Compiling 5 files (.ex)
Generated dialyzer_playground app
Interactive Elixir (1.7.3) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(1)> 

Like this?

I have updated the original post with more information about the error. I am sure the PLT tables are not being built correctly, but at this point I have no idea on how to fix it.

You need to asdf local elixir 1.7.3-otp-21.

That will get you the Elixir that is precompiled with the correct version of OTP.

Thanks for popping in!

After a long time of waiting, it finally finished, but now I have the following warnings/errors:

Finding suitable PLTs
Checking PLT...
[:compiler, :elixir, :kernel, :logger, :stdlib]
PLT is up to date!
No :ignore_warnings opt specified in mix.exs and default does not exist.

Starting Dialyzer
[
  check_plt: false,
  init_plt: '/home/fl4m3/Workspace/elixir_and_otp_guidebook/dialyzer_playground/_build/dev/dialyxir_erlang-21.1_elixir-1.7.3_deps-dev.plt',
  files_rec: ['/home/fl4m3/Workspace/elixir_and_otp_guidebook/dialyzer_playground/_build/dev/lib/dialyzer_playground/ebin'],
  warnings: [:unknown]
]
** (UndefinedFunctionError) function Dialyxir.Project.filter_warnings/1 is undefined or private. Did you mean one of:

      * filter_legacy_warnings/1
      * filter_legacy_warnings/2
      * filter_warning?/1

Am I missing some config flag?

I am using the {:dialyxir, "~> 1.0.0-rc.4", only: [:dev], runtime: false}, perhaps it is not stable enough?

Please try again with master, if the error remains please file a bug report at Issues · jeremyjh/dialyxir · GitHub and use one of the older RCs until the issue has been resolved and a new release (candidate) is available.

@NobbZ Thanks for the input, I have now created issues in the project’s page.
Once ( if ) the issue gets resolved, I will updated this discussion so future readers can also benefit from my findings or in case someone goes through the same.

Thanks for the tip @jeremyjh.

I’ve been struggling with Dialyzer usage and didn’t realise it was because I needed to install the appropriate Elixir/OTP version when using asdf (as below).

asdf install erlang 21.1.1
asdf install elixir 1.7.4-otp-21
asdf global erlang 21.1.1
asdf global elixir 1.7.4-otp-21

Fixed the issue. Turns out I had a lingering version of dialyxir isntalled globally with asdf elixir 1.7.3-otp-21 . I had to go to ~/.asdf/installs/elixir/1.7.3-otp-21/.mix/archives and manually delete the dialyxir folder.

Once I did that, everything worked out perfectly. So as a cautionary tale of advise for future readers, never install dialyxr locally and globally.

If you have dialyxir installed globally, make sure none of your projects has a local reference to it, or you will be in for a world of pain.

Special thanks to @NobbZ for helping out with the Git issue.