[erlang-questions] Server which spawns an additional server for each call

[Dave Challis]

Hi,
I'm trying to work out the structure for a small bit of functionality in 
erlang.  I've got a feeling there's an obvious solution, but I'm not 
experienced enough with the language sure what pattern to best follow...

So far, I've got a server which implements the gen_server behaviour, a 
supervisor for it, and a module containing an API for interacting with 
it (using gen_server:call mostly).

The server does a lot of work though, so blocks for a while until the 
call is finished.

What I'd like to do, is create a new server process each time 
gen_server:call is invoked by a client, with each server terminating 
when it's done processing (but always leaving 1 server running).

This means that clients using the API will have their request processes 
straight away, without having to wait for all the other calls to the 
server to finish.

I can't quite figure out where to place the logic for doing this though.

* Should the API module ask the supervisor to spawn a new child, then 
send the client's call to this?
* Should API calls go to the supervisor, and have it decide whether to 
spawn new servers or send the call to an existing one?
* Or should each server take care of telling the supervisor to spawn a 
new child, and pass the call request to the newly spawned one?

Is this a sensible approach in general, or is there an obvious pattern 
or some functionality I've missed?

Thanks,

-- 
Dave Challis
dsc@REDACTED