3 ms·

I believe that Beam implements copy-on-write so unless you create a copy with modifications it should minimize copies. values are immutable so this eliminates a

• toast0 9y ago
  When you pass a message, all the terms will be copied into the memory space owned by the receiving process. Refcounted binaries don't copy the value, just the reference of course (as well as updating the reference count information). This results in a lot of copying, but also makes process memory management very simple: when a process dies, you need to clean up the global state: decrement refcounted binaries, send notifications for linked processes and monitors, and release all the process heap memory. You don't need to inspect the process memory or worry about dangling references to it. Refcounted binaries are (mostly) effectively copy on write though; if you create a term that's a modified form, a new value will be formed.