How to turn a string with a valid Erlang expression into an abstract syntax tree (AST)?

Question

I would like to convert a string containing a valid Erlang expression to its abstract syntax tree representation, without any success so far.

Below is an example of

Answer 1

In your EDIT example:

String = "[1,2,3].",
{ok, Ts, _} = erl_scan:string(String),
{ok, ListAST} = erl_parse:parse_exprs(Ts),

the ListAST is actually a list of AST:s (because parse_exprs, as the name indicates, parses multiple expressions (each terminated by a period). Since your string contained a single expression, you got a list of one element. All you need to do is match that out:

{ok, [ListAST]} = erl_parse:parse_exprs(Ts),

so it has nothing to do with erl_syntax (which accepts all erl_parse trees); it's just that you had an extra list wrapper around the ListAST, which caused the compiler to puke.