[erlang-questions] Question about priority receive and "large" mailboxes

[Bengt Kleberg]

On 2007-08-02 21:02, Jim McCoy wrote:
> In Programming Erlang an example of using a receive with an "after 0"
> timeout to implement a priority receive is provided.  A small warning
> is given after the example suggestion that one should avoid using this
> for "large" mailboxes.  Is "large" a measure of the number of waiting
> messages or the total size of all waiting messages?

it is the total size of all waiting messages.

the idea is that if you have a steady input of high priority messages 
you might never have the time to handle/remove the low priority 
messages. thus making the mailbox grow without bounds. sooner or later 
that will exhaust your memory.


bengt
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