Elixir process module cheatsheet

The Process module defines functions for working with processes to handle things like introspection, starting/stopping, linking, etc.. These are a few that I find to be particularly useful:

• Process.list/0 - gets a list of all running processes on the BEAM VM.
• Process.info/1 - accepts a pid as an argument a returns metadata about the process.
• Process.alive?/1 - accepts a pid as an argument and returns a boolean based on if the process is alive or dead.
• Process.exit/2 - accepts a pid and an instruction atom (often :kill) and terminates the process

For other process behavior like creating new processes, linking processes and sending messages I find it more useful to use the Kernel functions spawn, spawn_link and send.

More Elixir process posts: Processes for web programmers, Let it crash explained, Processes in phoenix, Processes and concurrency