

find(Item, List) ->

find_(Item, List, 1).

find_(Item, [], _) -> not_found;

find_(Item, [H|T], Count) ->

case H of

Item ->

Count;

_ ->

find_(Item, T, Count+1)

end.



get_rec_value(Key, Rec, RecordInfo) ->

case find(Key, RecordInfo) of

not_found ->

undefined;

Num ->

element(Num+1, Rec)

end.









set_rec_value(Key, Value, Rec, RecordInfo) ->

RecList = tuple_to_list(Rec),

case find(Key, RecordInfo) of

not_found ->

Rec;

Num ->

List1 = lists:sublist(RecList, Num),

List2 = lists:sublist(RecList, Num+2, length(RecList)),

tuple_to_list(List1 ++ [Value] ++ List2)

end.



There is one thing I hate about Erlang, and it is records. It is not so much that the syntax is annoying (yet I am getting used to it), but you cannot use that syntax for dynamic field access; records are a compile-time feature.So, without using Yariv's Smerl for something like this, I opted for a simpler solution. Records are tuples after all, and you can get record information in a list. So, you can use these two facts to create a function to get the field you specify. Not anything stellar, but for dynamic record access, it works:I couldn't find something like "lists:find/2", so I implemented my own. But the main function is "get_rec_value/3". So you do this:1> rd(person, {id, name, email}).2> get_rec_value(name, #person{name="Brian"}, record_info(fields, person))."Brian"For fun, I also did setting record value.3> set_rec_value(email, "c", #person{name="Brian", id="1", email="b"}, record_info(fields, person)).I know this stuff looks really simple, but since I thought this was a bit of a nuisance, the fact that I cannot access records without hardcoding the values, something needed to be written.Did I miss something though? I'd like to know. Please comment. :)