elixir constantize a string to get the module (String.to_module/1)?

Question

I'm storing some metadata in a session to access different modules based on a string.

Is there any way to do this?

String.to_module("MyApp.Vendor")   #=> MyApp.Vendor
String.to_module("MyApp.Customer") #=> MyApp.Customer

Then end goal is using the account_type to look up the Struct by id to do something specific to that type.

account = Repo.get(String.to_module(account_type), account_id)
do_something_with(account)

def do_something_with(%Customer{id: id}) do 
  # yada yada
end

def do_something_with(%Vendor{id: id}) do 
  # something else
end

Answer 1

You are going to want to use String.to_existing_atom.

iex(5)> a = String.to_existing_atom("Elixir.Enum")
Enum
iex(6)> apply(a, :reverse, [[1, 2, 3]])

Note that the Elixir. prefix is important. If you do not include that, the system will not know what you are looking for.