[erlang-questions] Request for opinions on using process dictionary for meta information

[Mikael Pettersson]

Jay Doane writes:
 > Our team is currently using the process dictionary to store meta
 > information for long running processes, and would like to hear from folks
 > familiar with beam internals whether this is a recommended practice.
 > 
 > Essentially we add meta information about the current request in a process
 > dictionary of every process related to handling of this request. This
 > information could be:
 > - current file
 > - user name of initiator of the request
 > - http query parameters
 > - type of a process (indexer | compactor | http_handler)
 > 
 > For example, when we detect performance problems, we run a function that
 > returns the Pids of (say) top memory using processes. We use the meta info
 > stored in process dictionaries to determine which documents are using
 > excessive memory so we can take corrective action.
 > 
 > In practice, we are unable to use normal OTP messaging because in many
 > cases, the high memory using processes have also grown huge message queues,
 > and so would be unresponsive to any additional messages.
 > 
 > Given our existing constraints, is this a reasonable use of the process
 > dictionary?

Yes, I think this is perfectly reasonable.