How do I kill a process in Erlang knowing only the module name used to start it?

Question

How do I kill a process in Erlang knowing only the module name used to start it?

Answer 1

If it's for simple debugging, you could run pman:start(), and just look for the process (double-click on an entry to see details such as initial call). You can then kill it from pman directly.

Otherwise, you could use erlang:processes() to list all processes in the system (horrible, I know), and run erlang:process_info(Pid, initial_call) on each of them to find the right process. Once you've done that, just use exit(Pid, kill).

Answer 2

There is no way to do that.

Your best bet is to speculate based on the the registered name and/or the initial call of your processes.