when implementing a supervisor.. If, in the supervisor module, I do something like
init([_]) ->
{ok,
{{one_for_one, 5, 60},
[{reverese, {reverse, start_reverse, []}, permanent, brutal_kill, worker,[]}]}}.
and the reverse function is:
start_reverse() ->
Pid=spawn(?MODULE,reverse,[]).
It will not work since the start_reverse function exits normally in every case. However, when I add a line like this:
start_reverse() ->
Pid=spawn(?MODULE,reverse,[]),
{ok,Pid}.
It works, even when the function exits normally as well. Can someone explain why?
Actually.. It isnt really required for the supervisor child process to be a gen_server. The supervisor documentation specifically mentions that
The start function must create and link to the child process, and should return {ok,Child} or {ok,Child,Info} where Child is the pid of the child process and Info an arbitrary term which is ignored by the supervisor.
which is the reason why when you returned {ok, Pid} it worked..