How to get *another* ActorRef from an ActorSystem

[igalic]

i'm trying to store the (reference? to) the ActorSystem in my server's state management facility, to allow the various request handling threads of the server to have access to all the Actors of the ActorSystem in it.

But i don't understand how to get an ActorRef from the ActorSystem again after the Actor has already been started in main(). request handlers are short-lived, and it doesn't make sense for them to start Actors, let alone have all the information passed to them that would allow them to start those Actors.

From what I gather, the only way to do that, is to use Selection

[drogus]

I'm not sure how to do it in Riker, but maybe you could potentially use Arc<Mutex<ActorSystem>> and pass it around like that?

[igalic]

that's basically what I'm already doing (well, without the Mutex yet…)

but then how do i access an actor that's already started?

[hardliner66]

I think in actor systems it's normal to hold on to references once you create them and pass them to the other actors who need them.

[igalic]

yes, I'd just like to not pass around 5 references, when i'm also holding the ActorSystem

[hardliner66]

IMO passing around should be preferred, because then all your dependencies are more explicit. But if you don't want to do that, actor selection is probably the way to go.

[igalic]

aye. and that is the route we've taken, so we're on the correct (enough) path