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Revision: 1.7
Committed: Fri Nov 24 14:50:12 2006 UTC (17 years, 5 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rel-2_1
Changes since 1.6: +16 -0 lines
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# 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     TIMER WATCHERS
90     You can create a timer watcher by calling the "AnyEvent->timer" method
91     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 1.7 GLOBALS
151     $AnyEvent::MODEL
152     Contains "undef" until the first watcher is being created. Then it
153     contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of
154     the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of
155     the "AnyEvent::Impl:xxx" modules, but can be any other class in the
156     case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in *rxvt-unicode*).
157    
158     The known classes so far are:
159    
160     AnyEvent::Impl::Coro based on Coro::Event, best choise.
161     AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also best choice :)
162     AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, second-best choice.
163     AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
164     AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient.
165    
166 root 1.6 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
167     As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods
168     freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
169    
170     Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will
171     decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called,
172     so by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your
173     module to load the event module first.
174    
175     WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
176     There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
177     dictate which event model to use.
178    
179     If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
180     do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to
181     chose.
182    
183     If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in
184     Gtk2 programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you
185     should load it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it,
186     generally, as early as possible. The reason is that modules might create
187     watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event
188     model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it might chose the
189     wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
190    
191     You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
192     loading the "AnyEvent::Impl::Perl" module, but letting AnyEvent chose is
193     generally better.
194 root 1.2
195 root 1.5 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
196     If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
197     supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
198 root 1.6 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of the
199 root 1.5 event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
200     @AnyEvent::REGISTRY. You can do that before and even without loading
201     AnyEvent.
202    
203     Example:
204    
205     push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
206    
207 root 1.6 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the "urxvt::anyevent::"
208     package/class when it finds the "urxvt" package/module is loaded. When
209     AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will
210     first check for the presence of urxvt.
211    
212     The class should prove implementations for all watcher types (see
213     AnyEvent::Impl::Event (source code), AnyEvent::Impl::Glib (Source code)
214     and so on for actual examples, use "perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib" to
215     see the sources).
216 root 1.5
217     The above isn't fictitious, the *rxvt-unicode* (a.k.a. urxvt) uses the
218 root 1.6 above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent because it
219 root 1.5 doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside
220     *rxvt-unicode*, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
221     *rxvt-unicode* distribution.
222    
223 root 1.6 *rxvt-unicode* also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
224     condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
225     "die". This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls
226     must not be in an interactive appliation, so it makes sense.
227    
228 root 1.4 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
229     The following environment variables are used by this module:
230    
231     "PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE" when set to 2 or higher, reports which event
232     model gets used.
233    
234 root 1.2 EXAMPLE
235     The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a
236     timer to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the
237     program when the user enters quit:
238    
239     use AnyEvent;
240    
241     my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
242    
243     my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
244     warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
245     chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
246     warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
247     $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
248     });
249    
250     my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
251    
252     sub new_timer {
253     $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
254     warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
255     &new_timer; # and restart the time
256     });
257     }
258    
259     new_timer; # create first timer
260    
261     $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i
262    
263 root 1.3 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
264     Consider the Net::FCP module. It features (among others) the following
265     API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
266    
267     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
268    
269     my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
270     $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
271     my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
272    
273     The "client_get" method works like "LWP::Simple::get": it requests the
274     given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
275    
276     sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
277    
278     And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
279     Net::FCP, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
280    
281     More complicated is "txn_client_get": It only creates a transaction
282     (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
283    
284     my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
285    
286     It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the
287     completion of the request:
288    
289     $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
290    
291     It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
292    
293     socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
294     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
295     connect $txn->{fh}, ...
296     and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
297     and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
298     and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
299    
300 root 1.4 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error
301 root 1.3 occurs or the connection succeeds:
302    
303     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
304    
305     And returns this transaction object. The "fh_ready_w" callback gets
306     called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
307     writing.
308    
309     The "fh_ready_w" method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
310     request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for
311     reply data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't
312     matter for this example:
313    
314     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
315     syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
316     or die "connection or write error";
317     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
318    
319     Again, "fh_ready_r" waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
320     result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished:
321    
322     sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
323    
324     if (end-of-file or data complete) {
325     $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
326     $txn->{finished}->broadcast;
327 root 1.4 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
328 root 1.3 }
329    
330     The "result" method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
331     request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns
332     the data:
333    
334     $txn->{finished}->wait;
335 root 1.4 return $txn->{result};
336 root 1.3
337     The actual code goes further and collects all errors ("die"s,
338     exceptions) that occured during request processing. The "result" method
339     detects wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn
340     object) and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and
341     other problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result,
342     not in a random callback.
343    
344     All of this enables the following usage styles:
345    
346     1. Blocking:
347    
348     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
349    
350     2. Blocking, but parallelizing:
351    
352     my @datas = map $_->result,
353     map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
354     @urls;
355    
356     Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
357     anything about events.
358    
359     3a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module:
360    
361     use Event;
362    
363     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
364     my $txn = shift;
365     my $data = $txn->result;
366     ...
367     });
368    
369     Event::loop;
370    
371     3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
372    
373     use AnyEvent;
374    
375     my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
376    
377     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
378     ...
379     $quit->broadcast;
380     });
381    
382     $quit->wait;
383    
384 root 1.2 SEE ALSO
385 root 1.3 Event modules: Coro::Event, Coro, Event, Glib::Event, Glib.
386    
387     Implementations: AnyEvent::Impl::Coro, AnyEvent::Impl::Event,
388     AnyEvent::Impl::Glib, AnyEvent::Impl::Tk.
389    
390     Nontrivial usage example: Net::FCP.
391 root 1.2
392