[erlang-questions] time consuming operations inside gen_server

[Martin Dimitrov]

Hi,

This is actually a cast but since it takes long the gen_server will be
blocked and I want to avoid this.

Thanks for the replies,

Martin

On 12/12/2012 12:04 PM, Max Bourinov wrote:
> Hi Martin,
> 
> First of all I try to avoid calls in my systems. I believe that is there is
> a call - there is a potential lock. Casts are friends.
> 
> In your case I would suggest you to have "special" workers for time
> consuming operations. Workers should be gen_servers and should be a part of
> your supervisors tree.
> 
> This is just a general suggestion - of course each case is unique. Please
> adapt it to your case if possible.
> 
> Best regards,
> Max
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Martin Dimitrov <mrtndimitrov@REDACTED>wrote:
> 
>> Thanks, this sounds very cool.
>>
>> On 12/12/2012 11:42 AM, Attila Rajmund Nohl wrote:
>>> 2012/12/12 Martin Dimitrov <mrtndimitrov@REDACTED>:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> In our application, we have a gen_server that does a time consuming
>>>> operation. The message is of type cast thus the caller process doesn't
>>>> sit and wait for the operation to finish. But while the gen_server is
>>>> busy with the cast message, it doesn't serve any other call, right?
>>>>
>>>> So, would it be appropriate to create a process that will do the time
>>>> consuming operation and then notify the gen_server?
>>>
>>> The pattern I use in this case is to still use gen_server:call (if the
>>> caller needs to be blocked), start a separate process for the
>>> time-consuming stuff, return {noreply, ...} from the handle_call (so
>>> the gen_server can handle other calls), then call gen_server:reply
>>> from the started process when the time-consuming operation finished.
>>> Of course, the applicability of this pattern depends on what you
>>> actually do.
>>>
>>
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>