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<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">

<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2000</year><year>2009</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
      Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
      compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
      Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
      retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
    
      Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
      basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
      the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
      under the License.
    
    </legalnotice>

    <title>Introduction</title>
    <prepared>Gunilla Hugosson</prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>introduction.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>Purpose</title>
    <p>The purpose of this tutorial is to give the reader an orientation of the different interoperability mechanisms that can be used when integrating a program written in Erlang with a program written in another programming language, from the Erlang programmer's point of view.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Prerequisites</title>
    <p>It is assumed that the reader is a skilled Erlang programmer, familiar with concepts such as Erlang data types, processes, messages and error handling.</p>
    <p>To illustrate the interoperability principles C programs running in a UNIX environment have been used. It is assumed that the reader has enough knowledge to be able to apply these principles to the relevant programming languages and platforms.</p>
    <note>
      <p>For the sake of readability, the example code has been kept as simple as possible. It does not include functionality such as error handling, which might be vital in a real-life system.</p>
    </note>
  </section>
</chapter>

