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Elixir in Action, Second Edition

Name: Elixir in Action, Second Edition
Author: Sasa Juric
ISBN: 9781617295027

by Sasa Juric

February 2019

Intermediate to advanced

384 pages

10h 53m

English

Manning Publications

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Elixir in Action
Copyright
brief contents
contents
praise for the first edition
front matter
prefaceacknowledgmentsabout this bookWho should read this bookHow this book is organizedAbout the codeBook Forumabout the authorabout the cover illustration
1 First steps
1.1 About Erlang1.1.1 High availability1.1.2 Erlang concurrency1.1.3 Server-side systems1.1.4 The development platform1.2 About Elixir1.2.1 Code simplification1.2.2 Composing functions1.2.3 The big picture1.3 Disadvantages1.3.1 Speed1.3.2 EcosystemSummary
2 Building blocks
2.1 The interactive shell2.2 Working with variables2.3 Organizing your code2.3.1 Modules2.3.2 Functions2.3.3 Function arity2.3.4 Function visibility2.3.5 Imports and aliases2.3.6 Module attributes2.3.7 Comments2.4 Understanding the type system2.4.1 Numbers2.4.2 Atoms2.4.3 Tuples2.4.4 Lists2.4.5 Immutability2.4.6 Maps2.4.7 Binaries and bitstrings2.4.8 Strings2.4.9 First-class functions2.4.10 Other built-in types2.4.11 Higher-level types2.4.12 IO lists2.5 Operators2.6 Macros2.7 Understanding the runtime2.7.1 Modules and functions in the runtime2.7.2 Starting the runtimeSummary
3 Control flow
3.1 Pattern matching3.1.1 The match operator3.1.2 Matching tuples3.1.3 Matching constants3.1.4 Variables in patterns3.1.5 Matching lists3.1.6 Matching maps3.1.7 Matching bitstrings and binaries3.1.8 Compound matches3.1.9 General behavior3.2 Matching with functions3.2.1 Multiclause functions3.2.2 Guards3.2.3 Multiclause lambdas3.3 Conditionals3.3.1 Branching with multiclause functions3.3.2 Classical branching constructs3.3.3 The with special form3.4 Loops and iterations3.4.1 Iterating with recursion3.4.2 Tail function calls3.4.3 Higher-order functions3.4.4 Comprehensions3.4.5 StreamsSummary
4 Data abstractions
4.1 Abstracting with modules4.1.1 Basic abstraction4.1.2 Composing abstractions4.1.3 Structuring data with maps4.1.4 Abstracting with structs4.1.5 Data transparency4.2 Working with hierarchical data4.2.1 Generating IDs4.2.2 Updating entries4.2.3 Immutable hierarchical updates4.2.4 Iterative updates4.2.5 Exercise: importing from a file4.3 Polymorphism with protocols4.3.1 Protocol basics4.3.2 Implementing a protocol4.3.3 Built-in protocolsSummary

5 Concurrency primitives
5.1 Concurrency in BEAM5.2 Working with processes5.2.1 Creating processes5.2.2 Message passing5.3 Stateful server processes5.3.1 Server processes5.3.2 Keeping a process state5.3.3 Mutable state5.3.4 Complex states5.3.5 Registered processes5.4 Runtime considerations5.4.1 A process is sequential5.4.2 Unlimited process mailboxes5.4.3 Shared-nothing concurrency5.4.4 Scheduler inner workingsSummary
6 Generic server processes
6.1 Building a generic server process6.1.1 Plugging in with modules6.1.2 Implementing the generic code6.1.3 Using the generic abstraction6.1.4 Supporting asynchronous requests6.1.5 Exercise: refactoring the to-do server6.2 Using GenServer6.2.1 OTP behaviours6.2.2 Plugging into GenServer6.2.3 Handling requests6.2.4 Handling plain messages6.2.5 Other GenServer features6.2.6 Process lifecycle6.2.7 OTP-compliant processes6.2.8 Exercise: GenServer-powered to-do serverSummary
7 Building a concurrent system
7.1 Working with the mix project7.2 Managing multiple to-do lists7.2.1 Implementing a cache7.2.2 Writing tests7.2.3 Analyzing process dependencies7.3 Persisting data7.3.1 Encoding and persisting7.3.2 Using the database7.3.3 Analyzing the system7.3.4 Addressing the process bottleneck7.3.5 Exercise: pooling and synchronizing7.4 Reasoning with processesSummary
8 Fault-tolerance basics
8.1 Runtime errors8.1.1 Error types8.1.2 Handling errors8.2 Errors in concurrent systems8.2.1 Linking processes8.2.2 Monitors8.3 Supervisors8.3.1 Preparing the existing code8.3.2 Starting the supervisor process8.3.3 Child specification8.3.4 Wrapping the supervisor8.3.5 Using a callback module8.3.6 Linking all processes8.3.7 Restart frequencySummary
9 Isolating error effects
9.1 Supervision trees9.1.1 Separating loosely dependent parts9.1.2 Rich process discovery9.1.3 Via tuples9.1.4 Registering database workers9.1.5 Supervising database workers9.1.6 Organizing the supervision tree9.2 Starting processes dynamically9.2.1 Registering to-do servers9.2.2 Dynamic supervision9.2.3 Finding to-do servers9.2.4 Using temporary restart strategy9.2.5 Testing the system9.3 “Let it crash”9.3.1 Processes that shouldn’t crash9.3.2 Handling expected errors9.3.3 Preserving the stateSummary
10 Beyond GenServer
10.1 Tasks10.1.1 Awaited tasks10.1.2 Non-awaited tasks10.2 Agents10.2.1 Basic use10.2.2 Agents and concurrency10.2.3 Agent-powered to-do server10.2.4 Limitations of agents10.3 ETS tables10.3.1 Basic operations10.3.2 ETS powered key/value store10.3.3 Other ETS operations10.3.4 Exercise: process registrySummary
11 Working with components
11.1 OTP applications11.1.1 Creating applications with the mix tool11.1.2 The application behavior11.1.3 Starting the application11.1.4 Library applications11.1.5 Creating a to-do application11.1.6 The application folder structure11.2 Working with dependencies11.2.1 Adding a dependency11.2.2 Adapting the pool11.2.3 Visualizing the system11.3 Building a web server11.3.1 Choosing dependencies11.3.2 Starting the server11.3.3 Handling requests11.3.4 Reasoning about the system11.4 Configuring applications11.4.1 Application environment11.4.2 Varying configuration11.4.3 Config script considerationsSummary
12 Building a distributed system
12.1 Distribution primitives12.1.1 Starting a cluster12.1.2 Communicating between nodes12.1.3 Process discovery12.1.4 Links and monitors12.1.5 Other distribution services12.2 Building a fault-tolerant cluster12.2.1 Cluster design12.2.2 The distributed to-do cache12.2.3 Implementing a replicated database12.2.4 Testing the system12.2.5 Detecting partitions12.2.6 Highly available systems12.3 Network considerations12.3.1 Node names12.3.2 Cookies12.3.3 Hidden nodes12.3.4 FirewallsSummary
13 Running the system
13.1 Running a system with Elixir tools13.1.1 Using the mix and elixir commands13.1.2 Running scripts13.1.3 Compiling for production13.2 OTP releases13.2.1 Building a release with distillery13.2.2 Using a release13.2.3 Release contents13.3 Analyzing system behavior13.3.1 Debugging13.3.2 Logging13.3.3 Interacting with the system13.3.4 TracingSummary
Index
Lists of Figures, Tables and Listings
List of IllustrationsList of TablesList of Listings

Content preview from Elixir in Action, Second Edition

7 Building a concurrent system

This chapter covers:

Working with the mix project
Managing multiple to-do lists
Persisting data
Reasoning with processes

The concurrent examples you’ve seen so far have relied on a single server-process instance. But typical Elixir/Erlang systems are powered by a multitude of processes, many of which are stateful server processes. It’s not uncommon for a moderately complex system to run a few thousand processes, whereas larger systems may be powered by hundreds of thousands or even millions of processes. Remember that processes are cheap, so you can create them in abundance. And owing to message-passing concurrency, it’s still fairly easy to reason about highly concurrent systems. Therefore, it’s useful to run ...

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by Sasa Juric

7 Building a concurrent system

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