A GenServer-implementing approach would be something like the following:
defmodule BackgroundWorker do
use GenServer
def start_link() do
{:ok, pid} = GenServer.start_link(__MODULE__, nil)
pid
end
# Outward-facing API
def add_job(pid, job_function) do
# async message passing.
GenServer.cast(pid, {:add_job, job_function})
end
# Internal Callback
def handle_cast({:add_job, job_function}, _state) when is_function(job_function) do
# The BackgroundWorker GenServer uses the message mailbox as queue.
function.()
{:noreply, nil}
end
end
This simple implementation (note: untested, maybe there are typos) handles exactly one job at a time, but can of course be extended to handle multiple ones by adding another layer of indirection.
