[erlang-questions] Where can I use gen_server?

[Bengt Kleberg]

Greetings,

It is not obvious to me how you use the gen_server below. You are
registering it as global, but I understood your explanation below as if
you wanted a separate gen_server for each client.
Is the idea to have one gen_server, or one per client?


bengt

On Wed, 2009-04-01 at 19:34 -0700, ryeguy wrote:
> Well why doesn't this work then?
> 
> start()               -> gen_server:start({global, ?MODULE}, ?MODULE,
> [], []).
> stop()                -> gen_server:call({global, ?MODULE}, stop).
> test()                -> gen_server:cast({global, ?MODULE}, test).
> test2()                -> gen_server:cast({global, ?MODULE}, test2).
> 
> init([]) ->process_flag(trap_exit, true),
>     {ok, 0}.
> 
> handle_cast(test, State) ->
> 	timer:sleep(3000),
> 	io:format("asdasd"),
> 	{noreply, State};
> handle_cast(test2, State) ->
> 	timer:sleep(3000),
> 	3=4,                 %%% deliberate error
> 	{noreply, State}.
> 
> handle_call(stop, _From, State) ->
>     {stop, normal, stopped, State};
> handle_call(test2, _From, State) ->
> 	3=4,
>     {noreply, State}.
> 
> handle_info(_Info, State) ->
>     {noreply, State}.
> 
> terminate(_Reason, _State) ->
>     ok.
> 
> code_change(_OldVsn, State, _Extra) ->
>     {ok, State}.
> 
> When I call test2() then call test(), test2 (obviously) crashes, but
> test() appears to be terminated too.
> 
> On Apr 1, 10:12 am, Bengt Kleberg <bengt.kleb...@REDACTED> wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >
> > If you start a gen_server with start_link() it will take its clients
> > with it. If you start with start() the clients will remain.
> >
> > bengt
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 2009-03-30 at 19:29 -0700, ryeguy wrote:
> > > I'm making a game server, and I just can't see where I would want to
> > > use a gen_server. I'm not set on using one, but I don't want to skimp
> > > on using one where it would make it easier to program this app.
> >
> > > What I have per node is this: I have 1 process accepting new
> > > connections, which spawns a new process for each new client. For each
> > > packet that comes in, a new process is spawned to handle it and then
> > > it sends the result back to the listening process and terminates.
> >
> > > It sounds like a good candidate for gen_server, but per the docs it
> > > seems you want to use them when there is some shared resource that you
> > > want to manage, and I don't see one. If I gave each client their own
> > > gen_server, it wouldn't be good because if an erroneous packet was
> > > sent that caused an exception, it would terminate their connection and
> > > any other packets being processed for this client (since a gen_server
> > > takes all of its spawned processes down with it, right?).
> >
> > > Is there any advantage to using gen_server in my situation?
> > > _______________________________________________
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