ErlPort Features

Easy inter-language function calls

ErlPort supports Module-Function-Arguments (MFA) API to call a function in any supported language. This scheme also allows to create a chain of calls by passing another one MFA as arguments.

Easy inter-language message passing

All external languages have an API to send or handle messages sent from other languages. Moreover on Erlang side all messages will be redirected to an ErlPort external process.

Support for custom data types

All external languages support subset of Erlang data types as the common data types mapping. Also a special data type exists to transfer language specific data types between the same type of languages automatically. And moreover it's possible to create custom encoders/decoders to support higher level data types.

Support for all recent versions of the languages

ErlPort should work on any operating system (including Windows) on which supported languages are work. All recent versions of Erlang, Python and Ruby are supported. Please check Downloads page for more details.

How ErlPort works

To be able to communicate with an external language first an instance of the language should be created from Erlang. Usually an instance of the language can be created with start/0 or start/1 functions which can be found in an Erlang module for the specific language. During the start call ErlPort trying to start the language specific part of ErlPort library and supply the options passed to start/1 or default options for start/0.

When the language specific part of ErlPort library will be started new OS process will be created and connected to Erlang with a port. At this point ErlPort functions which work with language instances can be used, for example call/4 or cast/2 functions.

For each call of instance related functions like call/4 or cast/2 a message will be created and send to the port. The language specific part of ErlPort library on the other side of the port will handle the message by calling the function or message handler for example. The result of the operation (if applicable) will be passed back to the port and handled by the ErlPort library in Erlang. The same algorithm but in the opposite direction also works if external language want to call a function in Erlang.

At the end of the session when stop/1 function will be called the port connected to the language instance will be closed and the language specific part of ErlPort library will finish the OS process of the instance.