[erlang-questions] UNIX streams and Erlang ports

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

We have no intention of removing the message protocol for ports,
so if you want to use ports in a stream-like way, you still can.

/Bjorn

Robert Virding <robert.virding@REDACTED> writes:

> I discovered a copy of a very interesting, but rather old, paper by 
> Dennis Ritchie called "A Stream Input-Output System" from 1984. It 
> describes a new flexible system for communication between user 
> applications and devices.
> 
> "A stream is a full-duplex connection bwtween a user's process and a 
> device or pseudo device. It consists of several linearly connected 
> processing modules, and is analagous to a Shell pipeline, except that 
> data flows in both directions. The modules in a stream communicate 
> almost exclusively by passing messages to thier neighbors. ..."
> 
> It is a truly elegant concept.
> 
> What makes it especially interesting for us is that this was the model 
> on which Erlang ports and i/o was based. Ports represent devices and 
> applications communicate with devices by sending/receiving messages, 
> i.e. streams. By inserting processes bewtween the port and the 
> application the data can be processed along the way, i.e. processing 
> modules. This is the reason why originally ports looked almost exactly 
> like processes. An application communicated with a device by messages 
> and would not see what extra processing was done along the way, or where 
> it was done. We actually debated whether to have a separate data type at 
> all for ports.
> 
> Unfortunatley this model broke when the port_XXX functions were added. 
> You now have to know what you are communicating with. Goodbye abstraction.
> 
> What I find rather ironic and appeals to my, sometimes twisted, sense of 
> humour is part of the manual text describing the port_XXX commands. The 
> manual tries to show why the port_XXX commands are much more "logical" 
> than the message interface. All I can say is that they, those who added 
> the commands and wrote the text, missed the point and that the commands 
> are in fact illogical and break the model.
> 
> Reading old papers can be fun. You can find Ritchie's paper on his site, 
> along with a lot of other interesting stuff.
> 
> Robert
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-- 
Björn Gustavsson, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB