[erlang-questions] Erlang processes and state management design

[Alexander Lamb]

Thanks a lot,

But you seem to not consider solution 2 (process dictionnary). Is  
this because it is not efficient, or at least not more efficient than  
parameters?

Also, I read somewhere that the heap for processes in Erlang was  
rather small for historical reasons. If I store data in the  
parameters or in the process dictionnary, will I run into some limit?
Alternatively, I suppose the data for ETS structures are stored on  
the node's heap and not in the process heap? Is this correct?

Thanks,

Alex

Le 24 oct. 07 à 12:22, Bengt Kleberg a écrit :

> greetings,
>
> the first 3 solutions will be gone after the process dies. ets tables
> are garbage collected when their ''owning process'' dies.
>
> i would recommend 1 until you get > 1000 items per process.
> or you could start with 1. keep the adding/removing/extracting  
> hidden in
> a module and then switch to 3 using another module with the same  
> name if
> you run into problems.
>
>
> bengt
> Those were the days...
>     EPO guidelines 1978: "If the contribution to the known art resides
>     solely in a computer program then the subject matter is not
>     patentable in whatever manner it may be presented in the claims."
>
>
> On 2007-10-24 12:00, Alexander Lamb wrote:
>> Hello again,
>>
>> So, I am gradually understanding the design philosophy of an Erlang
>> application.
>> On the one hand, functionnal programming is about having no state.
>> However, in the situation of a Web application, you obviously need to
>> keep some state otherwise you are back to PhP style (in the sense you
>> are recalculating everything at each request).
>>
>> I went back to Joe's book and read again the chapter on processes.  
>> And,
>> as someone suggested earlier, I realized the state of an Erlang  
>> program
>> can actually be kept in a process. So when designing an  
>> application, you
>> indeed model the processes, then the state of the processes, then the
>> messages.
>>
>> So for example, if I create a process for each user who logs in to a
>> program. Upon creation of the process I could fetch all the  
>> features and
>> worklists the user has, then keep them in his process until he  
>> logs out
>> (or after a given long timeout).
>>
>> I can do that for every task which needs to keep a state between  
>> requests.
>>
>> Therefore, I have a question: where is it usuall or reasonnable to  
>> keep
>> the state of a process?
>>
>> 1) in the parameters of the function we spawn
>> 2) in the process dictionnary
>> 3) in an ETS structure
>> 4) in a in-memory mnesia structure
>>
>> I suppose it really depends on the amount of data and how it will be
>> modified (and if we want to keep persistent some session data  
>> after the
>> process is killed).
>>
>> Tell me if I am wrong, but the first two solutions will put data  
>> on the
>> process stack and will be destroyed when the process is killed.  
>> The two
>> other solutions will have to be cleaned out when the process is  
>> killed.
>>
>> Are there some guidelines?
>>
>> For a user process, I might have 30 or 40 features in a list, some
>> values about his account, etc...
>> For a process managing (for example) browsing patients in a list,  
>> I will
>> have the list of patients with the visits for the currently selected
>> patient, etc...
>>
>> Thanks for any hints!
>>
>> Alex
>> --
>> Alexander Lamb
>> Founding Associate
>> RODANOTECH Sàrl
>>
>> 4 ch. de la Tour de Champel
>> 1206 Geneva
>> Switzerland
>>
>> Tel:  022 347 77 37
>> Fax: 022 347 77 38
>>
>> http://www.rodanotech.ch
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> ---
>>
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--
Alexander Lamb
Founding Associate
RODANOTECH Sàrl

4 ch. de la Tour de Champel
1206 Geneva
Switzerland

Tel:  022 347 77 37
Fax: 022 347 77 38

http://www.rodanotech.ch



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