Programming Elixir ≥ 1.6

A Bigger Example

Let’s rewrite our anagram code to use both tasks and an agent.

We’ll load words in parallel from a number of separate dictionaries. A separate task handles each dictionary. We’ll use an agent to store the resulting list of words and signatures.

tasks/anagrams.exs

defmodule Dictionary do

  @name __MODULE__

  ##
  # External API

  def start_link,
  do: Agent.start_link(fn -> %{} end, name: @name)

  def add_words(words),
  do: Agent.update(@name, &do_add_words(&1, words))

  def anagrams_of(word),
  do: Agent.get(@name, &Map.get(&1, signature_of(word)))

  ##
  # Internal implementation

  defp do_add_words(map, words),
  do: Enum.reduce(words, map, &add_one_word(&1, &2))

  defp add_one_word(word, ...