Hello,
TL;DR: is it OK in elixir to pass large (MBytes) binary strings through function parameters ? If not, what would be a clean way to transfer this binary to the end user in a Plug HTTP response ?
Context: My program reads binary data from storage using a NIF, in a format that Elixir does not know about. Basically, this binary string has to be delivered to the end user through HTTP request. It can get quite big (10s of MBytes) and it works in my demonstrator by passing the binary string through the return of the NIF function and then passed along to the caller function which would then send it to the client through Plug.Connection.send/2
case MSeed.NIF.stream_data(conn.assigns.datafiles) do
{:ok, msrecords} -> send_data(conn, msrecords)
end
And the send_data/2 function prepares the HTTP result (resp headers) and sends the content of msrecords, like:
Plug.Conn.send_resp(conn, 200, msrecords)
What are the impacts of passing large data through function parameters ? Are there other better ways to do this ?
