Elixir: mix new (or anything else) not working

Created on 25 Mar 2015 · 8Comments · Source: elixir-lang/elixir

Hi!

I installed elixir from source and I am not able to do anything with mix than to get its version:

$ mix
** (ArgumentError) cannot invoke def/2 outside module
    (elixir) lib/kernel.ex:3556: Kernel.assert_module_scope/3
    (elixir) lib/kernel.ex:2816: Kernel.define/4
    (elixir) expanding macro: Kernel.def/2

This message appears regardless what I try to do with it, only thing working is mix --version (see below).

Some more info:

$ erl -eval 'erlang:display(erlang:system_info(otp_release)), halt().' -noshell
"17"
$ erl -version
Erlang (ASYNC_THREADS) (BEAM) emulator version 6.2
$ elixir --version
Elixir 1.0.3
$ mix --version
Mix 1.0.3
$ uname -a
Linux sabayon.local 3.17.0-sabayon #1 SMP Mon Jan 12 02:54:39 UTC 2015 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210M CPU @ 2.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Same thing happened also when I tried using tags 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, and HEAD.

Source

NobbZ

All 8 comments

Are you, by any chance, trying to run mix inside the Elixir directory or in a directory that has a mix.exs file with gibberish in it?

josevalim on 25 Mar 2015

👍1

I don't know if it was gibberish ;) But at least there was a mix.exs.

After removing it, it worked, but that project isn't usable anymore :) I have to talk to my co-student first, its his code, I just wanted to run it here.

Perhaps that errormessage could be somewhat more meaningful?

NobbZ on 25 Mar 2015

Yup, the error message is horrible. It needs to be fixed. :)

josevalim on 25 Mar 2015

The error coming from mix.exs is likely a call to def outside of a module.

josevalim on 25 Mar 2015

Fixed in master, thank you!

josevalim on 2 Apr 2015

👍1

I got this in espec in a test. Just for the next guy or gal running into this error, it was due to a subject not having an "end" keyword, which probably creates a function outside a module.

fregas on 19 Sep 2016

👍1

e: nvm me, sorry for that. i need to read directions more carefully.

ghost on 6 Apr 2018

Hit the same thing on my mac, with elixir installed via brew:

>elixir --version
Erlang/OTP 21 [erts-10.2.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [ds:8:8:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe] [dtrace]

Elixir 1.8.0 (compiled with Erlang/OTP 21)

Had a mix.exs file with the following content. I think this was from Programming Erlang but I can't remember now:

def deps do
  [{:poison, "~> 3.1"}]
end

Full output was:

** (ArgumentError) cannot invoke def/2 outside module
    (elixir) lib/kernel.ex:5362: Kernel.assert_module_scope/3
    (elixir) lib/kernel.ex:4101: Kernel.define/4
    (elixir) expanding macro: Kernel.def/2
    mix.exs:1: (file)

Anyway, things worked once I removed it.