Erlang Language gen_server behavior Greeter Service

Example

Here is an example of a service that greets people by the given name, and keeps track of how many users it encountered. See usage below.

%% greeter.erl
%% Greets people and counts number of times it did so.
-module(greeter).
-behaviour(gen_server).
%% Export API Functions
-export([start_link/0, greet/1, get_count/0]).
%% Required gen server callbacks
-export([init/1, handle_call/3, handle_cast/2, handle_info/2, terminate/2, code_change/3]).

-record(state, {count::integer()}).

%% Public API
start_link() ->
    gen_server:start_link({local, ?MODULE}, ?MODULE, {}, []).

greet(Name) ->
    gen_server:cast(?MODULE, {greet, Name}).

get_count() ->
    gen_server:call(?MODULE, {get_count}).

%% Private
init({}) ->
    {ok, #state{count=0}}.

handle_cast({greet, Name}, #state{count = Count} = State) ->
    io:format("Greetings ~s!~n", [Name]),
    {noreply, State#state{count = Count + 1}};

handle_cast(Msg, State) ->
    error_logger:warning_msg("Bad message: ~p~n", [Msg]),
    {noreply, State}.

handle_call({get_count}, _From, State) ->
    {reply, {ok, State#state.count}, State};

handle_call(Request, _From, State) ->
    error_logger:warning_msg("Bad message: ~p~n", [Request]),
    {reply, {error, unknown_call}, State}.

%% Other gen_server callbacks
handle_info(Info, State) ->
    error_logger:warning_msg("Bad message: ~p~n", [Info]),
    {noreply, State}.

terminate(_Reason, _State) ->
    ok.

code_change(_OldVsn, State, _Extra) ->
    {ok, State}.

Here is a sample usage of this service in the erlang shell:

1> c(greeter).
{ok,greeter}
2> greeter:start_link().
{ok,<0.62.0>}
3> greeter:greet("Andriy").
Greetings Andriy!
ok
4> greeter:greet("Mike").
Greetings Mike!
ok
5> greeter:get_count().
{ok,2}