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Whats the relation between a module and a process in Erlang

I am new to Erlang trying to understand what's the relation of a module and a process in Erlang. Dose each module spun up a new process in BEAM ? When we call a function from another module is there message passing been done between two process ?

I tried to search go through Erlang docs, while working on a existing Erlang code

Solution

  • Functions execute inside processes, whether they are defined in a module or not.

    Dose each module spun up a new process in BEAM ?

    Nope. You can define 50 modules and the functions therein can all execute in a single process. Modules are more like namespaces.

    When we call a function from another module is there message passing been done between two process ?

    1. There aren't two processes unless you start two processes.

    2. Message passing between processes is done by calling send/2 or using the operator !. Messages are read inside a process using a receive clause.