[erlang-questions] Return value: optimization?

[Roberto Ostinelli]

Dear list,
I was going through cowboy's code and I keep on seeing patterns such as
this:

_ = cowboy_req:reply(Status, Req),   [1]

or this one:

_ = case TRef of
undefined -> ignore;
TRef -> erlang:cancel_timer(TRef)
end,  [2]

All of these are done when we're there's no tail recursion. So now I'm
curious: what is the purpose of explicitly assigning an anonymous variable
to these expressions? Is this some kind of memory optimisation I'm just now
aware of?

Best,
r.


[1]
https://github.com/ninenines/cowboy/blob/1.0.1/src/cowboy_protocol.erl#L504
[2]
https://github.com/ninenines/cowboy/blob/1.0.1/src/cowboy_handler.erl#L274
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