thomas arts industrial use of a functional language thomas arts ericsson computer science laboratory...

Thomas Arts

Industrial Use of a Functional Language

Thomas ArtsEricsson

Computer Science Laboratory

Stockholm, Sweden

[email protected]://www.ericsson.se/cslab/~thomas

Thomas Arts

Telecom industry

• Switches, routers,

base-stations

• Networks

• Mobile telephones

Thomas Arts

Computer ScienceLaboratory

• Founded 1983

• Research on implementation tools, methods and techniques for telecommunication applications• Intermediate between universities and Ericsson product units

Thomas Arts

Telecom requirements

Requirements of telecom software

• Concurrency

• Distribution

• Soft real-time

• Robust

• Non-stop system

• External interfaces

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A good language?

Experiments in the 80s with Ada, C, ML, CML, Prolog...

• large programs (million lines)• change code in running system• fast message passing• low memory overhead• no memory fragmentation/leaks• recover from errors

Thomas Arts

Erlang/OTP

A functional language successfully used for programming large real-time control systems.

OTP is the set of libraries that is used with Erlang for product development

Thomas Arts

Erlang/OTP

• Erlang/OTP develop/maintenance• Erlang consultancy & courses• Erlang used many systems, e.g. ATM switch and new GSM network (GPRS)• Erlang Open Source

Erlangsequential program

Thomas Arts

-module(math).

-export([fac/1]).

fac(N) when N>0 ->

N*fac(N-1);

fac(N)->

1.

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Erlangdatatypes

• atoms (true,foo,’Hello’)• numbers (1212864187154)• floats (3.141592)• tuples ({a,123})• lists ([1,123,2,56])• process identifiers• ...

Thomas Arts

Erlangdatatypes

• dynamically typed language• poor mechanism to build your own datatypes

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Erlangcontrol structures

Matching

case X of

{ok,List} -> hd(List);

{resend,Data} -> submit;

error -> exit(error);

_ -> retry(X)

end

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Guards

f(....) when guard -> ...

If

f(X) ->

if guard1 -> ...;

guard2 -> ...

end

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Higher order functions

f(F,X) -> F(X);

map(F,[1,2,3,4]).

List comprehensions

[ X || {X,Y}<-Set, guard(X)]

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Naming of objects/data

f(X) ->

Dev = update_device(X),

{Date,Time} = now(),

h({Dev,Date}).

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Sequence

f(X) ->

action1(X),

action2(X);

update(X) ->

log(X,”myfile”), new(X).

side-effects

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Erlangcontrol - concurrency/distribution

Creating a process

Pid = spawn(F,[Arg1,...,ArgN]);

P1 P2

B = spawn(F,Args);P2

F(Arg1,...,ArgN)

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Sending messages

Pid ! Message;

P1 P2

B!{self(),hej};

{P1,hej}{P1,hej}

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Receiving messages

receive

Pattern -> ...;

end;

P1 P2{P1,hej}

receive {From,Msg} -> From ! {ok,Msg}end

P1 ! {ok,hej}

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Erlangchanging code in running system

P0

loop(F) -> receive {exec,Pid,Arg} -> Pid!F(Arg), loop(F) end;

P1N = F(15),P0 ! {exec,self(),15},N = receive Answer -> Answer end,

loop(F) -> receive {change,G} -> loop(G); {exec,Pid,Arg} -> Pid!F(Arg), loop(F) end;

Thomas Arts

Erlangfault tolerance

Processes can be linked to each other:

PidA PidB

Links are created by using either:

• link(Pid), or

• spawn_link(Module, Function, Args)

Links are bi-directional.

They can be removed using unlink(Pid).

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When a process terminates, an exit signal is sent to all processes the process is linked to:

PidA PidBPidA

A process can terminate normally, due to a run-time error, or when explicitly ordered to do so.

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PidC PidD PidEPidA PidBPidB PidD

If a process terminates abnormally, the emitted exit signal will (by default) cause the recipient to terminate:

The termination reason in the transmitted exit signals will be the same as in the received one (the exit signal is propagated).

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exit(error)

PidB PidCerror

PidAerror

A process can terminate itself using exit(Reason). This will cause exit signals with termination reason Reason to be emitted.

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A process can explicitly send an exit signal to another process using exit(Pid, Reason):

exit(PidB, error)

PidBPidAerror

• The calling process is not affected.

• The processes do not need to be linked.

Thomas Arts


A process can trap exit signals using:process_flag(trap_exit, true).

• Incoming exit signals will be transformed into messages of the form: {'EXIT', Pid, Reason}

• These exit messages are delivered to the process mailbox in the normal way.

Thomas Arts


PidC terminates with reason error, PidD is trapping exits:

PidC PidD PidEPidA PidBerror error

PidBPidA

PidB terminates, propagating the exit signal. PidD will receive an exit message

{'EXIT', PidC, error}.

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Robust systems can be made by layering.

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supervision trees and restart strategies

P1 P2 P3 P1 P4 P3

P6P5P1 P2 P3 P4

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Erlangcomponent based development

recognize frequently occurringpatterns and transfer them intostandard components.

• faster development• uniform code (maintenance)• less errors

Thomas Arts

Erlang

Developed with the application of the language constantly in mind

Practical usability more priority than purity

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Erlang is used

AXD 301, scalable ATM switch (up to 160 GB/sec)

• four years work• more than 500,000 lines of Erlang• several hundreds of programmers

Thomas Arts

Erlang is used

GPRS: next generation GSM network.

• Eigth times faster internet access in mobile phones• always connected• development in three countries, hundreds of people

Thomas Arts

Erlang is used

The success of the language in industry is due to

• Language features

• Support and libraries

• Design patterns / architectures

Thomas Arts

Erlang is used

Become a user yourself!

• passive: make a phonecall

• active: download Erlang for free

over 300 downloads

per month

Thomas Arts

Erlang

The functional language

for industry

thomas arts industrial use of a functional language thomas arts ericsson computer science laboratory...

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