Question

All the tutorials that I have read work like this:

class HelloWorldActor extends Actor {
  def receive = {
    case "Hello" => self.reply("World")
  }
}

val myActor = system.actorOf(Props[MyActor], name = "myactor")

I am wondering if AKKA supports the act() function inside an Actor class like this:

class HelloWorldActor extends Actor {
  def act() = {

  }
}

And then you can call:

val myActor = new HelloWorldActor
myActor.start()

I want to do this because my actor won’t be receieving any messages. It just works on its own. So can I use the act() function inside my AKKA actor?

Answer 1

In Akka, your actor should start automatically after creation using the system. But it sounds as if you want to use the actor like a plain thread we all know from Java. I would say that this is not the right way from an idiomatic point of view. You can of course just add a start message to your actor, send it to the actor after creation, and do your processing in the handler. But perhaps you should consider using a plain thread or a Future instead of an actor if you do not want to react on any message?