[erlang-questions] how to handle a complex timer process ?

[info]

Could you show us a skeleton with gen_fsm ?
Rgds,
John

I'd use a gen_fsm for this, then you can handle the timeout message in each state and transition appropriately.

Chad DePue
skype: cdepue
inakanetworks.com - Erlang consulting
rubyrescue.com - Ruby on Rails consulting
 



On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 2:10 PM, info <info@REDACTED> wrote:

Hi all,
I want to manage a timer with several actions.
- creation: creation of the timer process with "Period" as parameter. The timer shall be in suspend state.
- start: the timer is started.
- restart: the timer restarts with the Period.
- stop: the timer is stopped. The timer shall be in wait state. A start starts the timer.
- kill: the timer process is killed.
- after the timeout, a message is sent to another process. The timer shall be in suspend state.

For the creation, I do:
Pid = spawn (fun,?MODULE,the_timer,[Period]),
and after I manage like this:
Pid ! {start}
Pid ! {stop}
Pid ! {restart}
Pid ! {kill}

The structure of the timer is like this:

the_timer(Period)->
   receive
       {start}-> ???
       {restart}->
           the_timer(Period);
       {stop}-> ???
       {kill}-> ???
   after Period ->
       Pid0 -> {one_message},
       ???
   end.

How to handle the state ? how to keep the time after a stop and to start again with this time ? how to kill the process ?
How to start the timer only if a start message is received ?