[erlang-questions] gen_server Question

[Michael Truog]

I agree a gen_server can be very useful for this task.  There also is an
inotify port that might help you here:
http://www.trapexit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=44414

On 07/31/2010 06:51 PM, Geoff Cant wrote:
> gen_server has exactly the functionality you need. When returning from a
> callback, you can specify an extra timeout duration -- instead of
> {noreply, State}, use {noreply, State,
> timer:seconds(Timeout)}. After Timeout seconds of inactivity (this
> timer is cancelled every time you enter a callback), you'll enter the
> handle_info callback as: handle_info('timeout', State).
>
> The only thing you need to keep in mind with this approach is that all
> your callback return tuples should include this timeout
> (init/call/cast/info). This approach works well if you want to ensure
> you wait at least Timeout seconds between each timeout. If you take a
> long time to process a timeout, the next one will occur that much later
> as the clock starts from when you return from the callback.
>
> The other main approach is timer:send_interval/2 - this requires no
> modification of your gen_server return tuples, and will be sent every
> Interval, no matter how long it takes you to process one. It's useful if
> you need to do something every Interval and doing a few in a row is fine
> if the system slows down for some reason. One problem I have with it is
> I do development on my laptop, and when it wakes from sleep you get a
> barrage of timeouts.
>
> Being something of an OTP zealot, I'd advise you to use the gen_server
> behaviour unless you've got a good reason not to.
>
> Cheers,
> -Geoff
>
> "Behdad Forghani" <behdad.forghani@REDACTED> writes:
>
>   
>> Hello,
>>
>>  
>>
>> I am writing a module that mostly monitors a directory at certain intervals
>> and processes the files that are dropped into that directory and sends
>> messages to another process. I want this processes to be supervised. Two
>> options come into my mind:
>>
>>  
>>
>> 1 - Write a server myself, similar to server4.erl in Joe Armstrong's
>> "Programming Erlang" book. In this case, I will use an "after Time ->"
>> clause.
>>
>> 2 - Use gen_server behavior and use timer module to send messages to myself,
>> since, I do not see any other way to get regular timeouts.
>>
>>  
>>
>> My question is, shall I try to use gen_server? Do I get anything extra by
>> using gen_server? I do not need multicall and I can write my own terminate
>> routine. Is there anything else that I will be missing?
>>
>>  
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Behdad
>>
>>  
>>
>>     
>