[erlang-questions] atom (symbol) interning across distributed instances of runtime

[Glenn Kasten]

I'm curious about the implementation of message-passing of atoms (symbols)
among unrelated runtime instances, in particular how the atoms are interned.
I would assume that among a single runtime instance, atoms are passed
as small integers rather than strings, yet that would not work between
unrelated runtime instances
unless the atoms are interned to a consistent value per atoms.
For example, at first connection between runtimes, do the runtimes undergo
an atom negotiation protocol so they can agree on the interned values?
Or something else?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_(programming)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning

Thanks,
Glenn






-- 
Glenn Kasten
Android Media
x35392
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