Sometimes creating a whole actor is not needed because the problem to solve is relatively simple and a set of
functions is enough. Tarant contemplates this scenario allowing the developer to write function actors, that
benefit from some of the properties of actors, but are simpler.
- They are asynchronous and non-blocking
- They can be composed
- They partially benefit from materializers
However, there are some drawbacks compared to normal actors:
- They can not subscribe to topics
- They are stateless, so some materializers won’t work
- They must return promises or nothing at all (like callbacks)
To create an actor function, you need a running actor system:
const system = ActorSystem.default()
And then wrap the function calling the functionFor method in the system:
const sumActor = system.functionFor(async (a, b) => a + b)
And you can call it as a normal async function:
const result = await sumActor(5, 15)
expect(result).toBe(20)