What is Erlang programming language used for?

Erlang is a programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Some of its uses are in telecoms, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and instant messaging.

Is process alive Erlang?

This is called as is_process_alive(Pid). It returns true if the process exists and is alive i.e., whether it is not exiting and has not exited. …

Is Erlang an integer?

In Erlang there are 2 types of numeric literals which are integers and floats. Following are some examples which show how integers and floats can be used in Erlang. Integer − An example of how the number data type can be used as an integer is shown in the following program.

What is Erlang BIF?

Advertisements. BIFs are functions that are built into Erlang. They usually do tasks that are impossible to program in Erlang. For example, it’s impossible to turn a list into a tuple or to find the current time and date. To perform such an operation, we call a BIF.

Why is Erlang so fast?

In the usual case, Erlang does not use a contiguous chunk of memory to represent a sequence of bytes. The result is that concatenating two strings (I/O lists) takes O(1) time in Erlang, compared O(N) time in other languages. This is why template rendering in Ruby, Python, etc. is slow, but very fast in Erlang.

Is WhatsApp still written in Erlang?

Erlang remains on the fringes of the modern coding world, but at WhatsApp and other internet companies, including WeChat and Whisper, it has found a home with new applications that operate not unlike a massive phone network.

How do I terminate a process in Erlang?

A process can terminate itself by calling one of the BIFs exit(Reason), erlang:error(Reason), erlang:error(Reason, Args), erlang:fault(Reason) or erlang:fault(Reason, Args). The process then terminates with reason Reason for exit/1 or {Reason,Stack} for the others.

Why is Erlang good for concurrency?

One of the main reasons for using Erlang instead of other functional languages is Erlang’s ability to handle concurrency and distributed programming. It is easy to create parallel threads of execution in an Erlang program and to allow these threads to communicate with each other.

How many types of Erlang are there?

7 Types and Function Specifications.

Is tuple Erlang?

A tuple is a compound data type with a fixed number of terms. Each term in the Tuple is called an element. The tuple_size is an inbuilt function defined in Erlang which can be used to determine the size of the Tuple. …

Is Erlang faster than Java?

A native-code compiler is available, and according to numerical benchmarks, it makes Erlang programs faster than Ruby, Perl, and PHP, albeit slower than Java and JavaScript.

What makes Erlang special?

Process-oriented The main thing that distinguishes Erlang from other languages is its process-based computing model. It uses isolated, lightweight processes that communicate with each other through messages. The processes are isolated, fast to create, and take up only a small amount of memory.

Which is an example of the use of Erlang?

Strictly, an Erlang represents the continuous use of one voice path. In practice, it is used to describe the total traffic volume of one hour. For example, if a group of user made 30 calls in one hour and each call had an average call duration of 5 minutes, then the traffic figure is worked out as follows:

How does the frequency adjustment work in Erlang?

The frequency adjustments made to Erlang monotonic time depend on the time warp mode used. Internally in the runtime system, Erlang monotonic time is the “time engine” that is used for more or less everything that has anything to do with time.

What does Erlang mean in telecom traffic unit?

An Erlang is a unit of telecommunications traffic measurement. Strictly, an Erlang represents the continuous use of one voice path. In practice, it is used to describe the total traffic volume of one hour.

How is the native time unit determined in Erlang?

Symbolic representation of the native time unit used by the Erlang runtime system. The native time unit is determined at runtime system start, and remains the same until the runtime system terminates.