Concurrency Model: Actors

Actors could be considered tiny micro services within our application. They consist of Actors that act on predefined set of Messages when received. Notable example is Akka Actors.

Akka Actors

A Message is simply a Scala case class which carries information

case class Message(info: String)

An Actor receives messages that are sent directly to it

class MyActor extends Actor {
  def receive = {
    case Message(info) => println(s"received: $info")
    case _             => println("unknown message")
  }
}

To send a message, use an exclamation mark (!). This could be done from anywhere. Usually it is from an external event or another actor.

myActor ! myMessage

Before using actors, we need to create the system and the actors within. It is important to keep references to all the actors and that will be used for message passing later on.

val system = ActorSystem("actors")
val myActor = system.actorOf(Props[MyActor])

Good For

• Simulation of interaction between real-world objects, systems, or software processes
• When we know exactly who is the entity (actor) responsible for processing the message

Not Good For