I have a simple ports app (literally the example from the Erlang -- Ports documentation) and a GenServer controlling its use.
The GenServer can communicate with the C app just fine but it doesn't receive the responses, iex or its supervisor does. If I call flush
from iex, I see the expected message.
If I create a separate module and spawn a receive loop from it, it still doesn't receive the port response messages.
I have a feeling I'm incorrectly opening the Port but cannot prove it. Is there anything obvious I'm screwing up?
port = Port.open({:spawn, "./extprg"}, [{:packet, 2}, :exit_status])
collect = fun () -> collect_results(port) end
spawn(collect)
def collect_results(port) do
receive do
{^port, {:data, data}} ->
#never gets called despite matching messages in flush
{^port, {:exit_status, status}} ->
#never gets called...
{:increment, value} ->
Port.command(port, [1, value])
collect_results(port)
end
end
When opening a port from a module that uses GenServer
, ensure you are calling Port.open
in the init
function and not the start
or start_link
functions. init
is ran by the new process, where start
and start_link
are both still the calling process.
Here is an example of a GenServer
that uses a port:
https://github.com/fhunleth/elixir_ale/blob/master/lib/i2c.ex