From Erlang Community

A guide to the erlang source.

Contents 1 Download 2 Tree 3 Atoms 4 Basic types 5 BIFs 6 More types 7 SMP 8 Locking 9 Scheduler 10 Process 11 Monitors and links

Download

The source can be downloaded from: https://github.com/erlang/otp

Tree

Most of the interesting code is in: erts/emulator/beam

Atoms

The atoms used in erlang are listed in erts/emulator/beam/atom.names and are referenced in the code as am_foo. So the 'EXIT' atom is am_EXIT in the code.

Basic types

See sys.h for the basic datatypes:

• • Data types:
  • Eterm: A tagged erlang term (possibly 64 bits)
  • BeamInstr: A beam code instruction unit, possibly larger than Eterm, not smaller.
  • UInt: An unsigned integer exactly as large as an Eterm.
  • SInt: A signed integer exactly as large as an eterm and therefor large
  • enough to hold the return value of the signed_val() macro.
  • UWord: An unsigned integer at least as large as a void * and also as large
  • or larger than an Eterm
  • SWord: A signed integer at least as large as a void * and also as large
  • or larger than an Eterm
  • Uint32: An unsigned integer of 32 bits exactly
  • Sint32: A signed integer of 32 bits exactly
  • Uint16: An unsigned integer of 16 bits exactly
  • Sint16: A signed integer of 16 bits exactly.

See erts/emulator/beam/big.c for the conversion between types. For example uint_to_big(Uint x, Eterm *y). term_to_Uint(Eterm term, Uint *up). An Eterm can contain any erlang term like atoms, integers, etc.

BIFs

The bifs are summed up in the bif.tab file. For example: bif 'erl.lang':exit/1 ebif_exit_1 bif erlang:exit/2

This means the exit bif is mapped to the exit_1 method in the bif.c file. The bif.c file holds the bif implementations like:

BIF_RETTYPE spawn_3(BIF_ALIST_3) {...

BIF_ALIST_3 means you have BIF_P, BIF_ARG1 to 3 and The arguments BIF_ARG1 are Eterms, so you have to check them with

is_number(BIF_ARG_1), is_atom, is_tuple, is_list etc

As defined in bif.h: [code]

1. define BIF_RETTYPE Eterm

1. define BIF_P A__p

1. define BIF_ALIST_0 Process* A__p
2. define BIF_ALIST_1 Process* A__p, Eterm A_1
3. define BIF_ALIST_2 Process* A__p, Eterm A_1, Eterm A_2
4. define BIF_ALIST_3 Process* A__p, Eterm A_1, Eterm A_2, Eterm A_3

1. define BIF_ARG_1 A_1
2. define BIF_ARG_2 A_2
3. define BIF_ARG_3 A_3

[/code]

To bif to set process flags:

[code] BIF_RETTYPE process_flag_2(BIF_ALIST_2) {

  Eterm old_value;
 ...

  else if (BIF_ARG_1 == am_priority) {
      erts_smp_proc_lock(BIF_P, ERTS_PROC_LOCK_STATUS);
      old_value = erts_set_process_priority(BIF_P, BIF_ARG_2);
      erts_smp_proc_unlock(BIF_P, ERTS_PROC_LOCK_STATUS);
      if (old_value == THE_NON_VALUE)

goto error;

      BIF_RET(old_value);
  }

[/code]

am_priority is one of the predefined atoms (like am_EXIT). BIF_ARG_1 is an Eterm that can contain the erlang atom 'priority'. BIF_RETTYPE is an Eterm: we return the old priority as an Eterm.

More types

structs ErlSpawnOpts Process ErtsProcLocks ErtsMonitor

SMP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing You will see this a lot in the code: #ifdef ERTS_SMP Things get more complicated, with regards to locking etc. if SMP is enabled.

Locking

Scheduler

The process struct is defined in erts/emulator/beam/process.h. The important function is Process *schedule(Process *p, int calls) in process.c . The next process is picked in "pick_next_process" of that method.

Process

Process statuses are:

1. define P_FREE 0
2. define P_RUNABLE 1
3. define P_WAITING 2
4. define P_RUNNING 3
5. define P_EXITING 4
6. define P_GARBING 5
7. define P_SUSPENDED 6

Monitors and links

See erl_monitor.c and .h. The main structs are ErtsLinks and ErtsMonitor. Each process has a *ErtLinks and *ErtsMonitor (herein all its links/monitors are kept as an AVL tree). Actions are done with erts_sweep_links(ErtsLink *root, ...) and erts_sweep_monitors(ErtsMonitor *root, ...).