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Actor API

Installation

SlowActors.SlowActors — Module
SlowActors

A minimal Julia actors library for using the Actors interface.

It is not registered since it has demonstrative purpose. You can install it by:

pkg> add "https://github.com/JuliaActors/SlowActors.jl"
source

SlowActors uses and reexports Actors. So the functionality of Actors is available to work with "slow" actors.

SlowActors are actually a complete different implementation of actors than those in Actors. They implement a Mailbox type for communication. Slow actors don`t run in a loop listening to a channel, but are actually started as tasks when a message is sent to them.

But both libraries use a common Link{T} for communication. The following functions for creating actors or links return Link{Mailbox} as concrete type:

SlowActors.spawn — Function
spawn(bhv::Func; sticky=false)

Create a new slow actor with a behavior bhv. If sticky=true it is started on the same thread as the sender of a message.

Note: a slow actor is actually started as a task if a message is sent to it.

source
SlowActors.newLink — Function
newLink()

Create a mailbox (without an actor) which can be used to communicate with slow actors.

source

SlowActors exports only those two functions.

Primitives

SlowActors reimplements actually only one actor primitive:

Actors.send! — Function
send!(lk::Link{Mailbox}, msg::Msg)
send!(lk::Link{Mailbox}, msg...)

Send a message msg to a slow actor. Start it if it doesn't run.

Note: You must reeimplement those as methods of Actors.send!.

source

The other actor primitives such as become! or self are plugged in from Actors. See the source how that works.

User API

Likewise with the user API. SlowActors doesn't implement any user API functions but uses the message protocol of Actors and thus gets the Actors API.