Programming Elixir ≥ 1.6

Naming a Process

The idea of referencing processes by their PIDs gets old quickly. Fortunately, there are a number of alternatives.

The simplest is local naming. We assign a name that is unique for all OTP processes on our node, and then we use that name instead of the PID whenever we reference it. To create a locally named process, we use the name: option when we start the server:

iex> { :ok, pid } = GenServer.start_link(Sequence.Server, 100, name: :seq)
{:ok,#PID<0.58.0>}
iex> GenServer.call(:seq, :next_number)
100
iex> GenServer.call(:seq, :next_number)
101
iex> :sys.get_status :seq
{:status, #PID<0.69.0>, {:module, :gen_server},
 [["$ancestors": [#PID<0.58.0>],
 "$initial_call": {Sequence.Server, :init, ...