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NAME
    AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops

    Event, Coro, Glib, Tk, Perl - various supported event loops

SYNOPSIS
       use AnyEvent;

       my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub {
          ...
       });

       my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
          ...
       });

       my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores wether a condition was flagged
       $w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast
       $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's

DESCRIPTION
    AnyEvent provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
    allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
    users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can
    coexist peacefully at any one time).

    The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event
    module.

    On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the
    currently loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following
    modules is loaded: Coro::Event, Event, Glib, Tk. The first one found is
    used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the
    order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be
    used. If still none could be found, AnyEvent will fall back to a
    pure-perl event loop, which is also not very efficient.

    Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded,
    loading an Event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will
    likely make that model the default. For example:

       use Tk;
       use AnyEvent;

       # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk

    The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
    "AnyEvent::Impl::Perl". Like other event modules you can load it
    explicitly.

WATCHERS
    AnyEvent has the central concept of a *watcher*, which is an object that
    stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
    the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc.

    These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
    creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
    callback. To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting
    the variable that stores it to "undef" or otherwise deleting all
    references to it).

    All watchers are created by calling a method on the "AnyEvent" class.

  IO WATCHERS
    You can create I/O watcher by calling the "AnyEvent->io" method with the
    following mandatory arguments:

    "fh" the Perl *filehandle* (not filedescriptor) to watch for events.
    "poll" must be a string that is either "r" or "w", that creates a
    watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events. "cb" teh callback
    to invoke everytime the filehandle becomes ready.

    Only one io watcher per "fh" and "poll" combination is allowed (i.e. on
    a socket you can have one r + one w, not any more (limitation comes from
    Tk - if you are sure you are not using Tk this limitation is gone).

    Filehandles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the
    filehandle exists, too.

    Example:

       # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher
       my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
          chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
          warn "read: $input\n";
          undef $w;
       });

  TIME WATCHERS
    You can create a time watcher by calling the "AnyEvent->timer" method
    with the following mandatory arguments:

    "after" after how many seconds (fractions are supported) should the
    timer activate. "cb" the callback to invoke.

    The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
    timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
    and Glib).

    Example:

       # fire an event after 7.7 seconds
       my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
          warn "timeout\n";
       });

       # to cancel the timer:
       undef $w

  CONDITION WATCHERS
    Condition watchers can be created by calling the "AnyEvent->condvar"
    method without any arguments.

    A condition watcher watches for a condition - precisely that the
    "->broadcast" method has been called.

    The watcher has only two methods:

    $cv->wait
        Wait (blocking if necessary) until the "->broadcast" method has been
        called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally.

        Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that
        case, so if you are using this from a module, never require a
        blocking wait, but let the caller decide wether the call will block
        or not (for example, by coupling condition variables with some kind
        of request results and supporting callbacks so the caller knows that
        getting the result will not block, while still suppporting blockign
        waits if the caller so desires).

        You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return
        immediately.

    $cv->broadcast
        Flag the condition as ready - a running "->wait" and all further
        calls to "wait" will return after this method has been called. If
        nobody is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..

        Example:

           # wait till the result is ready
           my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;

           # do something such as adding a timer
           # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast
           # when the "result" is ready.

           $result_ready->wait;

  SIGNAL WATCHERS
    You can listen for signals using a signal watcher, "signal" is the
    signal *name* without any "SIG" prefix. Multiple signals events can be
    clumped together into one callback invocation, and callback invocation
    might or might not be asynchronous.

    These watchers might use %SIG, so programs overwriting those signals
    directly will likely not work correctly.

    Example: exit on SIGINT

       my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });

  CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
    You can also listen for the status of a child process specified by the
    "pid" argument (or any child if the pid argument is 0). The watcher will
    trigger as often as status change for the child are received. This works
    by installing a signal handler for "SIGCHLD". The callback will be
    called with the pid and exit status (as returned by waitpid).

    Example: wait for pid 1333

      my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => 1333, cb => sub { warn "exit status $?" });

GLOBALS
    $AnyEvent::MODEL
        Contains "undef" until the first watcher is being created. Then it
        contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of
        the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of
        the "AnyEvent::Impl:xxx" modules, but can be any other class in the
        case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in *rxvt-unicode*).

        The known classes so far are:

           AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV    based on Coro::EV, best choice.
           AnyEvent::Impl::EV        based on EV (an interface to libev, also best choice).
           AnyEvent::Impl::Coro      based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
           AnyEvent::Impl::Event     based on Event, also second best choice :)
           AnyEvent::Impl::Glib      based on Glib, second-best choice.
           AnyEvent::Impl::Tk        based on Tk, very bad choice.
           AnyEvent::Impl::Perl      pure-perl implementation, inefficient.

    AnyEvent::detect
        Returns $AnyEvent::MODEL, forcing autodetection of the event model
        if necessary. You should only call this function right before you
        would have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, very late at
        runtime.

WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
    As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods
    freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.

    Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will
    decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called,
    so by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your
    module to load the event module first.

WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
    There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
    dictate which event model to use.

    If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
    do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to
    chose.

    If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in
    Gtk2 programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you
    should load it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it,
    generally, as early as possible. The reason is that modules might create
    watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event
    model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it might chose the
    wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.

    You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
    loading the "AnyEvent::Impl::Perl" module, but letting AnyEvent chose is
    generally better.

SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
    If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
    supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
    pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of the
    event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
    @AnyEvent::REGISTRY. You can do that before and even without loading
    AnyEvent.

    Example:

       push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];

    This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the "urxvt::anyevent::"
    package/class when it finds the "urxvt" package/module is loaded. When
    AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will
    first check for the presence of urxvt.

    The class should provide implementations for all watcher types (see
    AnyEvent::Impl::Event (source code), AnyEvent::Impl::Glib (Source code)
    and so on for actual examples, use "perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib" to
    see the sources).

    The above isn't fictitious, the *rxvt-unicode* (a.k.a. urxvt) uses the
    above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent because it
    doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside
    *rxvt-unicode*, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
    *rxvt-unicode* distribution.

    *rxvt-unicode* also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
    condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
    "die". This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls
    must not be in an interactive application, so it makes sense.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
    The following environment variables are used by this module:

    "PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE" when set to 2 or higher, reports which event
    model gets used.

EXAMPLE
    The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a
    timer to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the
    program when the user enters quit:

       use AnyEvent;

       my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;

       my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
          warn "io event <$_[0]>\n";   # will always output <r>
          chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
          warn "read: $input\n";       # output what has been read
          $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
       });

       my $time_watcher; # can only be used once

       sub new_timer {
          $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
             warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
             &new_timer; # and restart the time
          });
       }

       new_timer; # create first timer

       $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i

REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
    Consider the Net::FCP module. It features (among others) the following
    API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:

       my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks

       my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
       $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
       my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks

    The "client_get" method works like "LWP::Simple::get": it requests the
    given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:

       sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }

    And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
    Net::FCP, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.

    More complicated is "txn_client_get": It only creates a transaction
    (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.

       my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;

    It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the
    completion of the request:

       $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;

    It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.

       socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
       fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
       connect $txn->{fh}, ...
          and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
          and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
          and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";

    Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error
    occurs or the connection succeeds:

       $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });

    And returns this transaction object. The "fh_ready_w" callback gets
    called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
    writing.

    The "fh_ready_w" method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
    request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for
    reply data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't
    matter for this example:

       fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
       syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
          or die "connection or write error";
       $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });

    Again, "fh_ready_r" waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
    result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished:

       sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};

       if (end-of-file or data complete) {
         $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
         $txn->{finished}->broadcast;
         $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
       }

    The "result" method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
    request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns
    the data:

       $txn->{finished}->wait;
       return $txn->{result};

    The actual code goes further and collects all errors ("die"s,
    exceptions) that occured during request processing. The "result" method
    detects wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn
    object) and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and
    other problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result,
    not in a random callback.

    All of this enables the following usage styles:

    1. Blocking:

       my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);

    2. Blocking, but parallelizing:

       my @datas = map $_->result,
                      map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
                         @urls;

    Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
    anything about events.

    3a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module:

       use Event;

       $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
          my $txn = shift;
          my $data = $txn->result;
          ...
       });

       Event::loop;

    3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:

       use AnyEvent;

       my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;

       $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
          ...
          $quit->broadcast;
       });

       $quit->wait;

SEE ALSO
    Event modules: Coro::Event, Coro, Event, Glib::Event, Glib.

    Implementations: AnyEvent::Impl::Coro, AnyEvent::Impl::Event,
    AnyEvent::Impl::Glib, AnyEvent::Impl::Tk.

    Nontrivial usage example: Net::FCP.


Revision:	1.12
Committed:	Fri Nov 9 19:37:05 2007 UTC (16 years, 6 months ago) by root
Branch:	MAIN
CVS Tags:	rel-2_6
Changes since 1.11:	+2 -1 lines
Log Message:	* empty log message *
#	User	Rev	Content
1	root	1.2	NAME
2			AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
3
4	root	1.6	Event, Coro, Glib, Tk, Perl - various supported event loops
5	root	1.2
6			SYNOPSIS
7	root	1.4	use AnyEvent;
8	root	1.2
9	root	1.6	my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r\|w", cb => sub {
10	root	1.2	...
11			});
12	root	1.3
13			my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
14	root	1.2	...
15			});
16
17	root	1.6	my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores wether a condition was flagged
18			$w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast
19	root	1.3	$w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's
20
21	root	1.2	DESCRIPTION
22			AnyEvent provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
23	root	1.6	allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
24	root	1.2	users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can
25			coexist peacefully at any one time).
26
27			The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event
28			module.
29
30			On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the
31			currently loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following
32			modules is loaded: Coro::Event, Event, Glib, Tk. The first one found is
33			used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the
34			order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be
35	root	1.6	used. If still none could be found, AnyEvent will fall back to a
36			pure-perl event loop, which is also not very efficient.
37
38			Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded,
39			loading an Event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will
40			likely make that model the default. For example:
41
42			use Tk;
43			use AnyEvent;
44
45			# .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
46
47			The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
48			"AnyEvent::Impl::Perl". Like other event modules you can load it
49			explicitly.
50
51			WATCHERS
52			AnyEvent has the central concept of a watcher, which is an object that
53			stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
54			the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc.
55
56			These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
57			creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
58			callback. To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting
59			the variable that stores it to "undef" or otherwise deleting all
60			references to it).
61
62			All watchers are created by calling a method on the "AnyEvent" class.
63
64			IO WATCHERS
65			You can create I/O watcher by calling the "AnyEvent->io" method with the
66			following mandatory arguments:
67
68			"fh" the Perl filehandle (not filedescriptor) to watch for events.
69			"poll" must be a string that is either "r" or "w", that creates a
70			watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events. "cb" teh callback
71			to invoke everytime the filehandle becomes ready.
72
73			Only one io watcher per "fh" and "poll" combination is allowed (i.e. on
74			a socket you can have one r + one w, not any more (limitation comes from
75			Tk - if you are sure you are not using Tk this limitation is gone).
76
77			Filehandles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the
78			filehandle exists, too.
79
80			Example:
81
82			# wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher
83			my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
84			chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
85			warn "read: $input\n";
86			undef $w;
87			});
88
89	root	1.8	TIME WATCHERS
90			You can create a time watcher by calling the "AnyEvent->timer" method
91	root	1.6	with the following mandatory arguments:
92
93			"after" after how many seconds (fractions are supported) should the
94			timer activate. "cb" the callback to invoke.
95
96			The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
97			timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
98			and Glib).
99
100			Example:
101
102			# fire an event after 7.7 seconds
103			my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
104			warn "timeout\n";
105			});
106
107			# to cancel the timer:
108			undef $w
109
110			CONDITION WATCHERS
111			Condition watchers can be created by calling the "AnyEvent->condvar"
112			method without any arguments.
113
114			A condition watcher watches for a condition - precisely that the
115			"->broadcast" method has been called.
116
117			The watcher has only two methods:
118
119			$cv->wait
120			Wait (blocking if necessary) until the "->broadcast" method has been
121			called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally.
122
123			Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that
124			case, so if you are using this from a module, never require a
125			blocking wait, but let the caller decide wether the call will block
126			or not (for example, by coupling condition variables with some kind
127			of request results and supporting callbacks so the caller knows that
128			getting the result will not block, while still suppporting blockign
129			waits if the caller so desires).
130
131			You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return
132			immediately.
133
134			$cv->broadcast
135			Flag the condition as ready - a running "->wait" and all further
136			calls to "wait" will return after this method has been called. If
137			nobody is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
138
139			Example:
140
141			# wait till the result is ready
142			my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
143
144			# do something such as adding a timer
145			# or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast
146			# when the "result" is ready.
147
148			$result_ready->wait;
149
150	root	1.8	SIGNAL WATCHERS
151			You can listen for signals using a signal watcher, "signal" is the
152			signal name without any "SIG" prefix. Multiple signals events can be
153	root	1.9	clumped together into one callback invocation, and callback invocation
154	root	1.8	might or might not be asynchronous.
155
156			These watchers might use %SIG, so programs overwriting those signals
157			directly will likely not work correctly.
158
159			Example: exit on SIGINT
160
161			my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
162
163			CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
164			You can also listen for the status of a child process specified by the
165	root	1.11	"pid" argument (or any child if the pid argument is 0). The watcher will
166			trigger as often as status change for the child are received. This works
167			by installing a signal handler for "SIGCHLD". The callback will be
168			called with the pid and exit status (as returned by waitpid).
169	root	1.8
170			Example: wait for pid 1333
171
172			my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => 1333, cb => sub { warn "exit status $?" });
173
174	root	1.7	GLOBALS
175			$AnyEvent::MODEL
176			Contains "undef" until the first watcher is being created. Then it
177			contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of
178			the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of
179			the "AnyEvent::Impl:xxx" modules, but can be any other class in the
180			case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in rxvt-unicode).
181
182			The known classes so far are:
183
184	root	1.12	AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.
185			AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, also best choice).
186	root	1.11	AnyEvent::Impl::Coro based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
187			AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also second best choice :)
188	root	1.7	AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, second-best choice.
189			AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
190			AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient.
191
192	root	1.8	AnyEvent::detect
193			Returns $AnyEvent::MODEL, forcing autodetection of the event model
194			if necessary. You should only call this function right before you
195			would have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, very late at
196			runtime.
197
198	root	1.6	WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
199			As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods
200			freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
201
202			Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will
203			decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called,
204			so by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your
205			module to load the event module first.
206
207			WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
208			There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
209			dictate which event model to use.
210
211			If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
212			do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to
213			chose.
214
215			If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in
216			Gtk2 programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you
217			should load it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it,
218			generally, as early as possible. The reason is that modules might create
219			watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event
220			model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it might chose the
221			wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
222
223			You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
224			loading the "AnyEvent::Impl::Perl" module, but letting AnyEvent chose is
225			generally better.
226	root	1.2
227	root	1.5	SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
228			If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
229			supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
230	root	1.6	pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of the
231	root	1.5	event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
232			@AnyEvent::REGISTRY. You can do that before and even without loading
233			AnyEvent.
234
235			Example:
236
237			push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
238
239	root	1.6	This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the "urxvt::anyevent::"
240			package/class when it finds the "urxvt" package/module is loaded. When
241			AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will
242			first check for the presence of urxvt.
243
244	root	1.8	The class should provide implementations for all watcher types (see
245	root	1.6	AnyEvent::Impl::Event (source code), AnyEvent::Impl::Glib (Source code)
246			and so on for actual examples, use "perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib" to
247			see the sources).
248	root	1.5
249			The above isn't fictitious, the rxvt-unicode (a.k.a. urxvt) uses the
250	root	1.6	above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent because it
251	root	1.5	doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside
252			rxvt-unicode, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
253			rxvt-unicode distribution.
254
255	root	1.6	rxvt-unicode also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
256			condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
257			"die". This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls
258	root	1.10	must not be in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
259	root	1.6
260	root	1.4	ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
261			The following environment variables are used by this module:
262
263			"PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE" when set to 2 or higher, reports which event
264			model gets used.
265
266	root	1.2	EXAMPLE
267			The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a
268			timer to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the
269			program when the user enters quit:
270
271			use AnyEvent;
272
273			my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
274
275			my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
276			warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
277			chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
278			warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
279			$cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
280			});
281
282			my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
283
284			sub new_timer {
285			$timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
286			warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
287			&new_timer; # and restart the time
288			});
289			}
290
291			new_timer; # create first timer
292
293			$cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i
294
295	root	1.3	REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
296			Consider the Net::FCP module. It features (among others) the following
297			API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
298
299			my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
300
301			my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
302			$transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
303			my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
304
305			The "client_get" method works like "LWP::Simple::get": it requests the
306			given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
307
308			sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
309
310			And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
311			Net::FCP, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
312
313			More complicated is "txn_client_get": It only creates a transaction
314			(completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
315
316			my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
317
318			It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the
319			completion of the request:
320
321			$txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
322
323			It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
324
325			socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
326			fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
327			connect $txn->{fh}, ...
328			and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
329			and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
330			and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
331
332	root	1.4	Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error
333	root	1.3	occurs or the connection succeeds:
334
335			$txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
336
337			And returns this transaction object. The "fh_ready_w" callback gets
338			called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
339			writing.
340
341			The "fh_ready_w" method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
342			request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for
343			reply data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't
344			matter for this example:
345
346			fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
347			syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
348			or die "connection or write error";
349			$txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
350
351			Again, "fh_ready_r" waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
352			result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished:
353
354			sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
355
356			if (end-of-file or data complete) {
357			$txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
358			$txn->{finished}->broadcast;
359	root	1.4	$txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
360	root	1.3	}
361
362			The "result" method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
363			request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns
364			the data:
365
366			$txn->{finished}->wait;
367	root	1.4	return $txn->{result};
368	root	1.3
369			The actual code goes further and collects all errors ("die"s,
370			exceptions) that occured during request processing. The "result" method
371			detects wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn
372			object) and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and
373			other problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result,
374			not in a random callback.
375
376			All of this enables the following usage styles:
377
378			1. Blocking:
379
380			my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
381
382			2. Blocking, but parallelizing:
383
384			my @datas = map $_->result,
385			map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
386			@urls;
387
388			Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
389			anything about events.
390
391			3a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module:
392
393			use Event;
394
395			$fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
396			my $txn = shift;
397			my $data = $txn->result;
398			...
399			});
400
401			Event::loop;
402
403			3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
404
405			use AnyEvent;
406
407			my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
408
409			$fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
410			...
411			$quit->broadcast;
412			});
413
414			$quit->wait;
415
416	root	1.2	SEE ALSO
417	root	1.3	Event modules: Coro::Event, Coro, Event, Glib::Event, Glib.
418
419			Implementations: AnyEvent::Impl::Coro, AnyEvent::Impl::Event,
420			AnyEvent::Impl::Glib, AnyEvent::Impl::Tk.
421
422			Nontrivial usage example: Net::FCP.
423	root	1.2
424