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erlangmessage-passing

Empty Process Mail box in Erlang

when you send a message to the shell process, you can flush all messages out by calling: c:flush(). 

C:\Windows\System32>erl
Eshell V5.9  (abort with ^G)
1> self() ! josh.
josh
2> self() ! me.
me
3> self() ! you.
you
4> flush().
Shell got josh
Shell got me
Shell got you
ok
5>

In my thinking , this empties the mail box of the shell process. What is the equivalent way of emptying the mailbox of any erlang process ?

Solution

  • This function should flush all messages from mailbox (in any process where you call it):

    flush() ->
        receive
                _ -> flush()
        after
                0 -> ok
        end.