Welcome, adventurer!

This is the collection of easy to read (ELI5) articles as well as in-depth knowledge such as VM internals, memory layout, opcodes etc. The project is work in progress, so come back soon! Github repository for pages https://github.com/kvakvs/beam-wisdoms

Latest

• 2018-01-13 ELI5 Spawning a process (actor), amended ELI5 copying, Pyrlang added to interfacing
• 2017-10-01 BEAM format: Added UTF8 atoms section, LocT, Attr section
• 2017-03-17 Data copying ELI5, efficiency guide

ELI5 Section (Explain Me Like I’m Five)

• BEAM VM ELI5
• Atoms ELI5
• Processes ELI5
• Process Heaps ELI5
• Input/Output and Ports ELI5
• Tracing ELI5
• BIF and NIF functions ELI5
• Types ELI5
• External Term Format ELI5
• Property Based Testing ELI5
• Efficiency ELI5

Deeper Knowledge Section

• BEAM Definitions
• Data Types Memory Layout
  • Immediate values
  • Lists (Cons)
  • Boxed
  • Headers
• BEAM Internal data sizes
  • Immediate
  • List
  • Boxed
  • Header
• Process Heap Layout
  • How Heap Grows
• Interfacing Erlang with the Outer World
  • Native Libraries
  • Ports and Network
• BEAM File Format
  • Sections
  • BEAM Compact Term Encoding
  • BEAM Code Section Format
• BEAM Instruction Codes
  • Opcode Table
• IO in Erlang
  • How a Driver Looks Like
  • Making a Port Driver

Todo

More details from ELI5 articles; IO and ports; Links and monitors; ETS?; BIFs, traps; Process: Exceptions; Ext term format

Smaller things you would’ve never noticed otherwise. OTP C source-related.

Erlang/OTP Source Style Guide, How OTP Source Would Benefit from C++, Things to Refactor in OTP