How Can I Serialize Access to a Device

[danielgracia]

@nkitiyakara

I’d like to serialize these requests so that they don’t conflict with each other.

That’s pretty much the optimal use-case for the GenServer behavior, you are safe using it.

@nkitiyakara

What I’m unclear about, though, is whether the handle_call will block other processes from using the server until it’s completed or if it’s just the one process using GenServer.call that gets blocked.

They block all other processes. By design GenServers can only serve one request at a time (this is how they are able to keep consistent state between requests). call will always block and wait until the caller request was fulfilled (or if it reaches a timeout).

You can check this thread here for more discussion: GenServer use-cases