How to get configuration data to a large number of threads?

[Vlad Dumitrescu]

Untitled----- Original Message ----- 
From: Heinrich Venter
>Each incoming transaction spwawns a process that handles it up to a
>point where output is generated. We need to be able to handle large
>volumes of transactions in a short time in bursts (SMS system using
>oserl http://oserl.sourceforge.net/)
>Each process needs to interpret the transaction content based on a set
>of configuration data. Unfortunately the entrie config set is needed
>for this and it could be as large as 5k (worst case, 1-2k is probably
>more realistic.)

Hi,

I got an interesting (hopefully) idea that might solve your problem and also 
other similar ones.

What if it was possible to clone a process, with all it's data? If there are 
no external references (large binaries that need to be reference counted, 
file handles, links to other processes and so on) then this could be faster 
and cheaper than just starting a process and copying the data as Erlang 
terms.

Of course, the problem is how to ensure there are no such external 
references, but maybe someone else has a solution to that.

regards,
Vlad