The Agent
module facilitates an abstraction for spawning processes and the receive-send loop. From here, we will call processes started using the Agent
module 'agent processes'. An agent process might be chosen to represent a central shared state.
To start an agent process, Agent
provides the start/2
function. The supplied function when start
-ing the agent process returns the initial state of the process:
# Start an agent process with an initial value of an empty list
{:ok, agent_pid} = Agent.start(fn -> [] end)
Just like Map
or List
, Agent
provides many functions for working with agent processes.
It is customary to organize and encapsulate all Agent
-related functionality into a module for the domain being modeled.
Your community association has asked you to implement a simple registry application to manage the community garden registrations. The Plot
struct has already been provided for you.
Implement the CommunityGarden.start/1
function, it should receive an optional keyword list of options to pass forward to the agent process. The garden's initial state should be initialized to represent an empty collection of plots. It should return an :ok
tuple with the garden's pid.
{:ok, pid} = CommunityGarden.start()
# => {:ok, #PID<0.112.0>}
Implement the CommunityGarden.list_registrations/1
function. It should receive the pid
for the community garden. It should return a list of the stored plots that are registered.
CommunityGarden.list_registrations(pid)
# => []
At this point, we haven't added the ability to register a plot, so this list should be empty
Implement the CommunityGarden.register/2
function. It should receive the pid
for the community garden and a name to register the plot. It should return the Plot
struct with the plot's id and person registered to when it is successful.
The ids should be incremental and unique. You can keep an id counter in the agent's state.
CommunityGarden.register(pid, "Emma Balan")
# => %Plot{plot_id: 1, registered_to: "Emma Balan"}
CommunityGarden.list_registrations(pid)
# => [%Plot{plot_id: 1, registered_to: "Emma Balan"}]
Implement the CommunityGarden.release/2
function. It should receive the pid
and id
of the plot to be released. It should return :ok
on success. When a plot is released, the id is not re-used, it is used as a unique identifier only.
CommunityGarden.release(pid, 1)
# => :ok
CommunityGarden.list_registrations(pid)
# => []
Implement the CommunityGarden.get_registration/2
function. It should receive the pid
and id
of the plot to be checked. It should return the plot if it is registered, and :not_found
if it is unregistered.
CommunityGarden.get_registration(pid, 1)
# => %Plot{plot_id: 1, registered_to: "Emma Balan"}
CommunityGarden.get_registration(pid, 7)
# => {:not_found, "plot is unregistered"}
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