fi.jumi.actors

Interface ActorThread

public interface ActorThread

Handle for creating and stopping actors.

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
<T> ActorRef<T>	bindActor(Class<T> type, T rawActor) Binds an actor to this ActorThread and returns an ActorRef for sending messages to it.
void	stop() Stops all actors which are bound to this ActorThread after all previously sent messages to them have been processed.

Method Detail

bindActor

<T> ActorRef<T> bindActor(Class<T> type,
                        T rawActor)

Binds an actor to this ActorThread and returns an ActorRef for sending messages to it. The recommended pattern for creating actors is ActorRef<TheActorInterface> theActor = actorThread.bindActor(TheActorInterface.class, new TheActor(theParameters)); all in one line.

Extra care should be taken to never pass around the raw actor instance. It should always be used through an ActorRef. Use the convention that when passing an actor as a method/constructor parameter to another class, the type of the parameter is ActorRef<TheActorInterface>.

All actors bound to the same ActorThread will be executed in the same Thread, so it is OK for them to share some mutable state when it is known that all the actors are bound to the same thread. A common pattern is to pass an actor its own ActorThread, so that it can create short-lived actors for callbacks, or a reference to itself, when communicating with other actors.

After nobody is holding the actor's ActorRef, that actor will be garbage collected. It is OK to create lots of short-lived actors.

stop

void stop()

Stops all actors which are bound to this ActorThread after all previously sent messages to them have been processed. It is not possible to stop just one actor from an ActorThread, though due to garbage collection that is usually not needed.

An alternative way to stop actors is to call Thread.interrupt() on the thread where the actor is running, which will stop that ActorThread immediately.