Erlang: how can I reference an anonymous function from within the body?

Question

In Erlang is there a way reference the currently executing function)?

That would be useful to spawn an infinite loop:

spawn(fun() -> do_something, this_fun() end)

In JavaScript arguments.callee does just that, see the specification on MDC.

Edit to answer a 'why would you do that': mostly curiosity; it is also useful to define a timer when prorotyping:

Self = self(),
spawn(fun() -> Self ! wake_up, receive after 1000 -> nil end, this_fun() end),
%% ...

Answer 1

In Erlang/OTP 17.0-rc1, you can use a named fun for that:

1> Self = self(),
1> Fun = fun ThisFun() ->
             Self ! wake_up,
             receive after 1000 -> nil end,
             ThisFun()
         end.
#Fun<erl_eval.44.71889879>
2> spawn(Fun).
<0.35.0>
3> flush().
Shell got wake_up
Shell got wake_up
Shell got wake_up
ok

---

In earlier versions, there is no way to do exactly that. You could pass the function itself as an argument:

Self = self(),
Fun = fun(ThisFun) ->
          Self ! wake_up,
          receive after 1000 -> nil end,
          ThisFun(ThisFun)
      end
spawn(fun() -> Fun(Fun) end),
%% ...

Answer 2

If you feel like twisting things a little bit:

Y = fun(M,B) -> G = fun(F) -> M(fun() -> (F(F))() end, B) end, G(G) end.
spawn(Y(fun(F, ParentPid) -> fun() -> ParentPid ! wake_up, receive after 1000 -> ok end, F() end end, self())).

Flush the messages couple times to see the result:

flush().

Of course, Y is more useful if you put it in some sort of library. Also you can find this post on Y Combinators: http://bc.tech.coop/blog/070611.html quite interesting