Anatomy of an Elixir Process and Actor Communication

Anatomy of an Elixir Process
How Elixir actors communicate via GenServer methods?

Transcript

1. Anatomy of an Elixir Process 11/2016 by Mustafa Turan Erlang/Elixir Meetup Zendesk - Dublin
2. What’s an Elixir Process? Elixir Process inside BEAM Actor Communication Summary 10 min @mustafaturan
3. STATE Mailbox CALCULATION FUNCTIONS (MSG LISTENERS) @mustafaturan Elixir/Erlang Process An actor
4. Erlang Virtual Machine OS Process (1) Process (2) Process (3) …. Process (n) Erlang VM -- pid 109 -- pid 206 -- pid 3114 -- ... STATE Mailbox CALCULATION FUNCTIONS (MSG LISTENERS) (pid 109) @mustafaturan
5. Sends a message with no-reply Christmas sales up to %90, come to our new store and start shopping! (GenServer.cast) Company A girl @mustafaturan Actor Communication Basic / one direction
6. Sends a message how r u? Responses to message Good! How r u? (GenServer.call) Mustafa Gozde @mustafaturan Actor Communication Basic / bi-directional
7. Sends a message Mustafa Gozde is unreachable! Changed her number or Out of charge or Airplane mode Mobile Operator Phone number is not available (GenServer.call) @mustafaturan Actor Communication No process
8. Sends a message (GenServer.call) Mustafa has a TTL of 1 minute! Also knows the message delivered She did not replied in one minute! What will Mustafa do? Mustafa Gozde Send another message? Try to reach her from other channels / call her? Go crazzy ???? He will behave like how you code it! @mustafaturan Actor Communication TTL / bi-directional
9. Sends a message#1 Mustafa Sends a message#2 Mustafa’s Message Box(1) --------------------------------------- Message #1 from Gozde Gozde Other girl Mustafa’s Message Box(2) --------------------------------------- Message #1 from Gozde(*) Message #2 from Other Girl Mustafa’s Message Box(3) --------------------------------------- Message #2 from Other Girl Mustafa’s Message Box(4) --------------------------------------- *Processing not finished yet @mustafaturan Responses to message #1 Responses to message #2 Mustafa may change its state depending on messages.
10. Actor dies? What happens if the actor dies? Sends message to its supervisor - Down/Exit: - Depending on strategy, supervisor decide what to do. - Could handle its own crash by catching the ‘exit’ signal
11. QUESTIONS
12. THANKS