Support for non-unique process labels?

Nathan Long him@REDACTED
Thu May 6 16:06:51 CEST 2021


Is there a way to add a non-unique label to a process? If not, I would like
to propose that it be added.

The label could be shown with or instead of a PID. I think this would be
useful in at least two areas.

First, when observing a running system, the PID is not descriptive. I have
Observer open right now looking at part of my system, and I can see one
globally registered process name displayed, but everything else is a PID.
What are those processes? I might be able to figure it out by clicking the
process and seeing what its initial call was, but often I can tell is "it's
a GenServer." The structure of the system would be much more apparent if I
saw labels like "db_connection" or "request_queue_worker".

Second, when reading error messages in logs or an exception tracker, the
PID is not useful. For example, I'm looking at an error in Sentry right now
that says "Sentry.CrashError error ** (exit) 'stopping because dependent
process <0.2255.0> died: killed'". I have no idea what `<0.2555.0>` was, so
I don't know what to debug.

Does this exist or would others support it being added to the BEAM?

-- Nathan
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