Setting the window title from Erlang

How do I change the title of my terminal window from Erlang?

Maybe your shell updates the window title to the currently-running command? If all of your windows say “erl” or “make shell” or “rebar3 shell”, it’s going to be hard to tell them apart. Here’s how to set the window title from Erlang, assuming an xterm-compatible terminal emulator.

set_window_title(Title) when is_list(Title) ->
    Seq = "\e]0;" ++ Title ++ "\007",
    open_port({spawn, "echo -ne \"" ++ Seq ++ "\""}, [nouse_stdio]),
    ok.

The trick with open_port is required; if you try to use io:format, the Erlang shell hangs. I think I found it on the Erlang mailing list.