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Revision: 1.125
Committed: Fri May 23 23:37:13 2008 UTC (16 years, 1 month ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.124: +30 -3 lines
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# User Rev Content
1 root 1.124 =head1 => NAME
2 root 1.1
3 root 1.2 AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4    
5 root 1.108 EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6 root 1.1
7     =head1 SYNOPSIS
8    
9 root 1.7 use AnyEvent;
10 root 1.2
11 root 1.14 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub {
12 root 1.2 ...
13     });
14 root 1.5
15     my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 root 1.2 ...
17     });
18    
19 root 1.52 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
20 root 1.114 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
21     $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
22 root 1.5
23 root 1.43 =head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24 root 1.41
25     Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
26     nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
27    
28     Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
29     policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
30    
31     First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
32     interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use in a
33     pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
34 root 1.53 the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
35     only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
36     helps hiding the differences between those event loops.
37 root 1.41
38     The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
39     programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
40     religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
41     module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
42     model you use.
43    
44 root 1.53 For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
45     actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
46     like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
47     cannot use anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that
48     isn't itself. What's worse, all the potential users of your module are
49     I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
50    
51     AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
52     fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
53     with the rest: POE + IO::Async? no go. Tk + Event? no go. Again: if
54     your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
55     too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
56     event models it supports (including stuff like POE and IO::Async, as long
57     as those use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new
58     event loops to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
59 root 1.41
60 root 1.53 In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
61 root 1.41 model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
62 root 1.53 modules, you get an enourmous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63     follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
64     offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
65 root 1.41 technically possible.
66    
67 root 1.45 Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
68 root 1.46 useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
69     model, you should I<not> use this module.
70 root 1.43
71 root 1.1 =head1 DESCRIPTION
72    
73 root 1.2 L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
74 root 1.13 allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
75 root 1.2 users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
76     peacefully at any one time).
77    
78 root 1.53 The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
79 root 1.2 module.
80    
81 root 1.53 During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
82 root 1.61 to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
83 root 1.108 following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
84 root 1.81 L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
85 root 1.61 L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
86 root 1.81 to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
87 root 1.61 adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
88 root 1.57 be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
89     found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
90     very efficient, but should work everywhere.
91 root 1.14
92     Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
93 root 1.53 an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
94 root 1.14 that model the default. For example:
95    
96     use Tk;
97     use AnyEvent;
98    
99     # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
100    
101 root 1.53 The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
102     starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
103     use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
104    
105 root 1.14 The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
106     C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
107     explicitly.
108    
109     =head1 WATCHERS
110    
111     AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
112     stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
113     the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc.
114    
115     These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
116 root 1.53 creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
117     callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
118     is in control).
119    
120     To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
121     variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
122     to it).
123 root 1.14
124     All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
125    
126 root 1.53 Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
127     example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
128    
129     An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
130    
131     my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
132     # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
133     undef $w;
134     });
135    
136     Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
137     my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
138     declared.
139    
140 root 1.78 =head2 I/O WATCHERS
141 root 1.14
142 root 1.53 You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
143     with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
144 root 1.14
145 root 1.85 C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch
146     for events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>,
147     which creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events,
148 root 1.53 respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle
149     becomes ready.
150    
151 root 1.85 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
152     presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
153     callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
154    
155 root 1.82 The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
156 root 1.84 You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
157     underlying file descriptor.
158 root 1.53
159     Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
160     always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
161     handles.
162 root 1.14
163     Example:
164    
165     # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher
166     my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
167     chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
168     warn "read: $input\n";
169     undef $w;
170     });
171    
172 root 1.19 =head2 TIME WATCHERS
173 root 1.14
174 root 1.19 You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
175 root 1.14 method with the following mandatory arguments:
176    
177 root 1.53 C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
178 root 1.85 supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
179     in that case.
180    
181     Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
182     presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
183     callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
184 root 1.14
185     The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
186     timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
187     and Glib).
188    
189     Example:
190    
191     # fire an event after 7.7 seconds
192     my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
193     warn "timeout\n";
194     });
195    
196     # to cancel the timer:
197 root 1.37 undef $w;
198 root 1.14
199 root 1.53 Example 2:
200    
201     # fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second
202     my $w;
203    
204     my $cb = sub {
205     # cancel the old timer while creating a new one
206     $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => $cb);
207     };
208    
209     # start the "loop" by creating the first watcher
210     $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, cb => $cb);
211    
212     =head3 TIMING ISSUES
213    
214     There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
215     in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
216     o'clock").
217    
218 root 1.58 While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
219     use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
220     "jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
221     the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
222     fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
223 root 1.53
224     AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
225 root 1.58 about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
226     on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
227     timers.
228 root 1.53
229     AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
230     AnyEvent API.
231    
232     =head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
233 root 1.14
234 root 1.53 You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
235     I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to
236     be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
237    
238 root 1.85 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
239     presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
240     callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
241    
242 root 1.58 Multiple signal occurances can be clumped together into one callback
243 root 1.53 invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means
244     that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
245     but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
246    
247     The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
248     between multiple watchers.
249    
250     This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
251     directly will likely not work correctly.
252    
253     Example: exit on SIGINT
254    
255     my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
256    
257     =head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
258    
259     You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
260    
261     The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
262     watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
263     as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
264     signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
265 root 1.85 and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
266     you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
267 root 1.53
268 root 1.82 There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
269     I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
270     have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
271    
272     Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
273     event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
274     loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
275    
276     This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
277     AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
278     C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
279    
280     Example: fork a process and wait for it
281    
282     my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
283    
284     my $pid = fork or exit 5;
285 root 1.53
286     my $w = AnyEvent->child (
287 root 1.82 pid => $pid,
288 root 1.53 cb => sub {
289     my ($pid, $status) = @_;
290     warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
291 root 1.106 $done->send;
292 root 1.53 },
293     );
294    
295 root 1.82 # do something else, then wait for process exit
296 root 1.114 $done->recv;
297 root 1.82
298 root 1.53 =head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
299    
300 root 1.105 If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
301     require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
302     will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
303    
304     AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
305     will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
306    
307     The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
308     because they represent a condition that must become true.
309    
310     Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
311     >> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
312     C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
313     becomes true.
314    
315     After creation, the conditon variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
316 root 1.106 by calling the C<send> method.
317 root 1.105
318     Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
319     optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
320     in time where multiple outstandign events have been processed. And yet
321     another way to call them is transations - each condition variable can be
322     used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
323     a result.
324 root 1.14
325 root 1.105 Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
326     for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
327 root 1.53 then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
328 root 1.105 availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
329 root 1.114 called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
330 root 1.53
331 root 1.105 You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
332     you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
333 root 1.114 could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
334 root 1.106 button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
335 root 1.53
336     Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
337 root 1.114 two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robbin fashion, you
338 root 1.53 lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
339     you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
340     as this asks for trouble.
341 root 1.41
342 root 1.105 Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
343     used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
344     easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
345     AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
346     it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
347    
348     There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
349 root 1.106 eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
350     for the send to occur.
351 root 1.105
352     Example:
353    
354     # wait till the result is ready
355     my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
356    
357     # do something such as adding a timer
358 root 1.106 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
359 root 1.105 # when the "result" is ready.
360     # in this case, we simply use a timer:
361     my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
362     after => 1,
363 root 1.106 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
364 root 1.105 );
365    
366     # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
367 root 1.106 # calls send
368 root 1.114 $result_ready->recv;
369 root 1.105
370     =head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
371    
372     These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
373 root 1.106 code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
374 root 1.105 the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
375     uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
376 root 1.2
377 root 1.1 =over 4
378    
379 root 1.106 =item $cv->send (...)
380 root 1.105
381 root 1.114 Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
382     calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
383 root 1.106 called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
384 root 1.105
385     If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
386 root 1.106 immediately from within send.
387 root 1.105
388 root 1.106 Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
389 root 1.114 future C<< ->recv >> calls.
390 root 1.105
391     =item $cv->croak ($error)
392    
393 root 1.114 Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
394 root 1.105 C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
395    
396     This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
397     user/consumer.
398    
399     =item $cv->begin ([group callback])
400    
401     =item $cv->end
402    
403 root 1.114 These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
404    
405 root 1.105 These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
406     one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
407     to use a condition variable for the whole process.
408    
409     Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
410     C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
411     >>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
412 root 1.106 is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
413     callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
414 root 1.105
415     Let's clarify this with the ping example:
416    
417     my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
418    
419     my %result;
420 root 1.106 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
421 root 1.105
422     for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
423     $cv->begin;
424     ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
425     $result{$host} = ...;
426     $cv->end;
427     };
428     }
429    
430     $cv->end;
431    
432     This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
433 root 1.106 C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
434 root 1.105 order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
435     each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
436     it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
437     results arrive is not relevant.
438    
439     There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
440     loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
441     to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
442 root 1.106 C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
443 root 1.105 doesn't execute once).
444    
445     This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
446     use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
447     is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
448     C<begin> and for eahc subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
449    
450     =back
451    
452     =head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
453    
454     These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
455     code awaits the condition.
456    
457 root 1.106 =over 4
458    
459 root 1.114 =item $cv->recv
460 root 1.14
461 root 1.106 Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
462 root 1.105 >> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
463     normally.
464    
465     You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
466     will return immediately.
467    
468     If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
469     function will call C<croak>.
470 root 1.14
471 root 1.106 In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
472 root 1.105 in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
473 root 1.14
474 root 1.47 Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
475 root 1.53 (programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
476     using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
477 root 1.52 caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
478 root 1.47 condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
479     callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
480     while still suppporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
481    
482 root 1.114 Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
483     sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
484 root 1.47 multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
485 root 1.108 can supply.
486    
487     The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
488     fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
489     versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
490 root 1.114 C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
491 root 1.108 coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
492 root 1.47
493 root 1.114 You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
494     only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
495 root 1.105 time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
496     waits otherwise.
497 root 1.53
498 root 1.106 =item $bool = $cv->ready
499    
500     Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
501     C<croak> have been called.
502    
503     =item $cb = $cv->cb ([new callback])
504    
505     This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
506     replaces it before doing so.
507    
508     The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
509 root 1.114 C<send> or C<croak> are called. Calling C<recv> inside the callback
510 root 1.106 or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
511    
512 root 1.53 =back
513 root 1.14
514 root 1.53 =head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
515 root 1.16
516     =over 4
517    
518     =item $AnyEvent::MODEL
519    
520     Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
521     contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
522     Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
523     C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
524     AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
525    
526     The known classes so far are:
527    
528 root 1.56 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
529     AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
530 root 1.104 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
531 root 1.48 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
532 root 1.16 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
533 root 1.56 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
534 root 1.55 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
535 root 1.61 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
536    
537     There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
538     watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
539     POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
540     second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
541 root 1.62 AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
542 root 1.61 it's adaptor.
543 root 1.16
544 root 1.62 AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
545     autodetecting them.
546    
547 root 1.19 =item AnyEvent::detect
548    
549 root 1.53 Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
550     if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
551     have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
552     runtime.
553 root 1.19
554 root 1.111 =item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
555 root 1.109
556     Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
557     autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
558    
559 root 1.110 If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
560 root 1.112 that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
561     L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
562 root 1.110
563 root 1.111 =item @AnyEvent::post_detect
564 root 1.108
565     If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
566     before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
567     the event loop has been chosen.
568    
569     You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
570     if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
571     and the array will be ignored.
572    
573 root 1.111 Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
574 root 1.109
575 root 1.16 =back
576    
577 root 1.14 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
578    
579 root 1.53 As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
580 root 1.14 freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
581    
582 root 1.53 Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
583 root 1.14 decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
584     by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
585     to load the event module first.
586    
587 root 1.114 Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
588 root 1.106 the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
589 root 1.53 because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
590     events is to stay interactive.
591    
592 root 1.114 It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
593 root 1.53 requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
594 root 1.114 called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
595 root 1.53 freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
596    
597 root 1.14 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
598    
599     There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
600     dictate which event model to use.
601    
602     If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
603 root 1.53 do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
604     decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
605 root 1.14
606 root 1.53 If the main program relies on a specific event model. For example, in
607     Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module. You should load the
608     event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
609     speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
610     modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
611     decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
612     might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
613 root 1.14
614     You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
615 root 1.53 loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar
616     behaviour everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose is generally better.
617 root 1.14
618 elmex 1.100 =head1 OTHER MODULES
619    
620 root 1.101 The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
621     AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
622     in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
623     available via CPAN.
624    
625     =over 4
626    
627     =item L<AnyEvent::Util>
628    
629     Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
630     functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
631    
632     =item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
633 elmex 1.100
634 root 1.101 Provide read and write buffers and manages watchers for reads and writes.
635 elmex 1.100
636 root 1.125 =item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
637    
638     Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
639     addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
640     connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
641    
642 root 1.101 =item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
643    
644     Provides a simple web application server framework.
645    
646     =item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
647    
648 root 1.125 Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
649 elmex 1.100
650     =item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
651    
652 root 1.101 The fastest ping in the west.
653    
654 elmex 1.100 =item L<Net::IRC3>
655    
656 root 1.101 AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
657    
658 elmex 1.100 =item L<Net::XMPP2>
659    
660 root 1.101 AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
661    
662     =item L<Net::FCP>
663    
664     AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
665     of AnyEvent.
666    
667     =item L<Event::ExecFlow>
668    
669     High level API for event-based execution flow control.
670    
671     =item L<Coro>
672    
673 root 1.108 Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
674 root 1.101
675 root 1.113 =item L<AnyEvent::AIO>, L<IO::AIO>
676 root 1.101
677 root 1.113 Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
678     programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses IO::AIO and AnyEvent
679     together.
680 root 1.101
681 root 1.113 =item L<AnyEvent::BDB>, L<BDB>
682 root 1.101
683 root 1.113 Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
684     IO::AIO and AnyEvent together.
685 root 1.101
686 root 1.113 =item L<IO::Lambda>
687 root 1.101
688 root 1.113 The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
689 root 1.101
690 elmex 1.100 =back
691    
692 root 1.1 =cut
693    
694     package AnyEvent;
695    
696 root 1.2 no warnings;
697 root 1.19 use strict;
698 root 1.24
699 root 1.1 use Carp;
700    
701 root 1.123 our $VERSION = '3.6';
702 root 1.2 our $MODEL;
703 root 1.1
704 root 1.2 our $AUTOLOAD;
705     our @ISA;
706 root 1.1
707 root 1.7 our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
708    
709 root 1.8 our @REGISTRY;
710    
711 root 1.1 my @models = (
712 root 1.33 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
713 root 1.18 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
714     [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
715 root 1.62 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
716     [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
717 root 1.18 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
718 root 1.61 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
719 root 1.104 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
720 root 1.61 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
721 root 1.56 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
722 root 1.61 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
723 root 1.1 );
724    
725 root 1.106 our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
726 root 1.3
727 root 1.111 our @post_detect;
728 root 1.109
729 root 1.111 sub post_detect(&) {
730 root 1.110 my ($cb) = @_;
731    
732 root 1.109 if ($MODEL) {
733 root 1.110 $cb->();
734    
735     1
736 root 1.109 } else {
737 root 1.111 push @post_detect, $cb;
738 root 1.110
739     defined wantarray
740 root 1.119 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
741 root 1.110 : ()
742 root 1.109 }
743     }
744 root 1.108
745 root 1.119 sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
746 root 1.111 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
747 root 1.110 }
748    
749 root 1.19 sub detect() {
750     unless ($MODEL) {
751     no strict 'refs';
752 root 1.1
753 root 1.55 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
754     my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
755     if (eval "require $model") {
756     $MODEL = $model;
757     warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
758 root 1.60 } else {
759     warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
760 root 1.2 }
761 root 1.1 }
762    
763 root 1.55 # check for already loaded models
764 root 1.2 unless ($MODEL) {
765 root 1.61 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
766 root 1.8 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
767 root 1.55 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
768     if (eval "require $model") {
769     $MODEL = $model;
770     warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
771     last;
772     }
773 root 1.8 }
774 root 1.2 }
775    
776 root 1.55 unless ($MODEL) {
777     # try to load a model
778    
779     for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
780     my ($package, $model) = @$_;
781     if (eval "require $package"
782     and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
783     and eval "require $model") {
784     $MODEL = $model;
785     warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
786     last;
787     }
788     }
789    
790     $MODEL
791 root 1.108 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
792 root 1.55 }
793 root 1.1 }
794 root 1.19
795     unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
796     push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
797 root 1.108
798 root 1.111 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
799 root 1.1 }
800    
801 root 1.19 $MODEL
802     }
803    
804     sub AUTOLOAD {
805     (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
806    
807     $method{$func}
808     or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
809    
810     detect unless $MODEL;
811 root 1.2
812     my $class = shift;
813 root 1.18 $class->$func (@_);
814 root 1.1 }
815    
816 root 1.19 package AnyEvent::Base;
817    
818 root 1.114 # default implementation for ->condvar
819 root 1.20
820     sub condvar {
821 root 1.124 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
822 root 1.20 }
823    
824     # default implementation for ->signal
825 root 1.19
826     our %SIG_CB;
827    
828     sub signal {
829     my (undef, %arg) = @_;
830    
831     my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
832     or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
833    
834 root 1.31 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
835 root 1.19 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
836 root 1.20 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
837 root 1.19 };
838    
839 root 1.20 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
840 root 1.19 }
841    
842     sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
843     my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
844    
845     delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
846    
847     $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
848     }
849    
850 root 1.20 # default implementation for ->child
851    
852     our %PID_CB;
853     our $CHLD_W;
854 root 1.37 our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
855 root 1.20 our $PID_IDLE;
856     our $WNOHANG;
857    
858     sub _child_wait {
859 root 1.38 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
860 root 1.32 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
861     (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
862 root 1.20 }
863    
864     undef $PID_IDLE;
865     }
866    
867 root 1.37 sub _sigchld {
868     # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
869     $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
870     undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
871     &_child_wait;
872     });
873     }
874    
875 root 1.20 sub child {
876     my (undef, %arg) = @_;
877    
878 root 1.31 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
879 root 1.20 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
880    
881     $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
882    
883     unless ($WNOHANG) {
884     $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
885     }
886    
887 root 1.23 unless ($CHLD_W) {
888 root 1.37 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
889     # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
890     &_sigchld;
891 root 1.23 }
892 root 1.20
893     bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
894     }
895    
896     sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
897     my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
898    
899     delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
900     delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
901    
902     undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
903     }
904    
905 root 1.116 package AnyEvent::CondVar;
906    
907     our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
908    
909     package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
910 root 1.114
911     sub _send {
912 root 1.116 # nop
913 root 1.114 }
914    
915     sub send {
916 root 1.115 my $cv = shift;
917     $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
918 root 1.116 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
919 root 1.115 $cv->_send;
920 root 1.114 }
921    
922     sub croak {
923 root 1.115 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
924 root 1.114 $_[0]->send;
925     }
926    
927     sub ready {
928     $_[0]{_ae_sent}
929     }
930    
931 root 1.116 sub _wait {
932     AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
933     }
934    
935 root 1.114 sub recv {
936 root 1.116 $_[0]->_wait;
937 root 1.114
938     Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
939     wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
940     }
941    
942     sub cb {
943     $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
944     $_[0]{_ae_cb}
945     }
946    
947     sub begin {
948     ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
949     $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
950     }
951    
952     sub end {
953     return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
954 root 1.124 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
955 root 1.114 }
956    
957     # undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
958     *broadcast = \&send;
959 root 1.116 *wait = \&_wait;
960 root 1.114
961 root 1.8 =head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
962    
963 root 1.53 This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
964     a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
965     provide AnyEvent compatibility.
966    
967 root 1.8 If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
968     supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
969 root 1.11 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
970 root 1.8 the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
971     C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
972 root 1.53 AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
973 root 1.8
974     Example:
975    
976     push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
977    
978 root 1.12 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
979 root 1.53 package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
980    
981     When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
982     will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
983     C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
984    
985     The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
986     L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
987     and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
988     see the sources.
989    
990     If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
991     provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
992    
993     The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
994     terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
995     in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
996     inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
997 root 1.8 I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
998    
999 root 1.12 I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1000     condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1001     C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1002 root 1.53 not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1003 root 1.12
1004 root 1.7 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1005    
1006     The following environment variables are used by this module:
1007    
1008 root 1.55 =over 4
1009    
1010     =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1011    
1012 root 1.60 By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1013     conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1014     talkative.
1015    
1016     When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1017     conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1018     C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1019    
1020 root 1.55 When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1021     model it chooses.
1022    
1023     =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1024    
1025     This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1026     autodetection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1027     entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1028     and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1029     used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1030     autodetection and -probing.
1031    
1032     This functionality might change in future versions.
1033    
1034     For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1035     could start your program like this:
1036    
1037     PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1038    
1039 root 1.125 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1040    
1041     Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1042     for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1043     of autoprobing).
1044    
1045     Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1046     current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1047     used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1048     list.
1049    
1050     Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1051     but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1052     - only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1053     addressses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1054     IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1055    
1056 root 1.55 =back
1057 root 1.7
1058 root 1.53 =head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1059 root 1.2
1060 root 1.78 The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1061 root 1.53 to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1062     program when the user enters quit:
1063 root 1.2
1064     use AnyEvent;
1065    
1066     my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1067    
1068 root 1.53 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1069     fh => \*STDIN,
1070     poll => 'r',
1071     cb => sub {
1072     warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
1073     chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
1074     warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
1075 root 1.118 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1076 root 1.53 },
1077     );
1078 root 1.2
1079     my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
1080    
1081     sub new_timer {
1082     $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
1083     warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
1084     &new_timer; # and restart the time
1085     });
1086     }
1087    
1088     new_timer; # create first timer
1089    
1090 root 1.118 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1091 root 1.2
1092 root 1.5 =head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
1093    
1094     Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
1095     API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
1096    
1097     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
1098    
1099     my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
1100     $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
1101     my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
1102    
1103     The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
1104     given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
1105    
1106     sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
1107    
1108     And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
1109     L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
1110    
1111     More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
1112     (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
1113    
1114     my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
1115    
1116     It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
1117     of the request:
1118    
1119     $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
1120    
1121     It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
1122    
1123     socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
1124     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
1125     connect $txn->{fh}, ...
1126     and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
1127     and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
1128     and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
1129    
1130 root 1.6 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1131 root 1.5 or the connection succeeds:
1132    
1133     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
1134    
1135     And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
1136     called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
1137     writing.
1138    
1139     The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
1140     request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
1141     data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
1142     this example:
1143    
1144     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
1145     syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
1146     or die "connection or write error";
1147     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
1148    
1149     Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
1150     result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished:
1151    
1152     sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1153    
1154     if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1155     $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1156 root 1.118 $txn->{finished}->send;
1157 root 1.6 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1158 root 1.5 }
1159    
1160     The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
1161     request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
1162     data:
1163    
1164 root 1.118 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1165 root 1.6 return $txn->{result};
1166 root 1.5
1167     The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1168     that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1169 root 1.52 whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1170 root 1.5 and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
1171     problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
1172     random callback.
1173    
1174     All of this enables the following usage styles:
1175    
1176     1. Blocking:
1177    
1178     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
1179    
1180 root 1.49 2. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1181 root 1.5
1182     my @datas = map $_->result,
1183     map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
1184     @urls;
1185    
1186     Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
1187     anything about events.
1188    
1189 root 1.49 3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1190 root 1.5
1191 root 1.49 use EV;
1192 root 1.5
1193     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1194     my $txn = shift;
1195     my $data = $txn->result;
1196     ...
1197     });
1198    
1199 root 1.49 EV::loop;
1200 root 1.5
1201     3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
1202    
1203     use AnyEvent;
1204    
1205     my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
1206    
1207     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1208     ...
1209 root 1.118 $quit->send;
1210 root 1.5 });
1211    
1212 root 1.118 $quit->recv;
1213 root 1.5
1214 root 1.64
1215 root 1.91 =head1 BENCHMARKS
1216 root 1.64
1217 root 1.65 To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1218 root 1.91 over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1219     of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1220 root 1.77
1221 root 1.91 =head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1222    
1223     Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1224     through anyevent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1225     timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1226     which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1227    
1228     Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1229     distribution.
1230    
1231     =head3 Explanation of the columns
1232 root 1.68
1233     I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1234     different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1235     loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1236     and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1237     would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1238     of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1239    
1240     I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1241     RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1242     and Perl-based overheads.
1243    
1244     I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1245     takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1246     all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1247     and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1248    
1249     I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1250     callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1251 root 1.118 invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1252 root 1.69 signal the end of this phase.
1253 root 1.64
1254 root 1.71 I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1255 root 1.68 watcher.
1256 root 1.64
1257 root 1.91 =head3 Results
1258 root 1.64
1259 root 1.75 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1260     EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1261 root 1.83 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1262     CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1263     Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1264     Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1265 root 1.98 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1266 root 1.83 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1267     Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1268     POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1269     POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1270 root 1.64
1271 root 1.91 =head3 Discussion
1272 root 1.68
1273     The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1274     well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1275     can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1276 root 1.80 file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1277     the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1278     boost.
1279 root 1.68
1280 root 1.95 Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1281     overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1282     the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1283     higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1284    
1285 root 1.96 To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1286     benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1287     EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1288     cycles with POE.
1289    
1290 root 1.68 C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1291 root 1.84 maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1292     far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1293     natively.
1294 root 1.64
1295     The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1296 root 1.86 constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1297     interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1298     adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1299     performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1300     them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1301 root 1.64
1302 root 1.90 The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1303     cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1304 root 1.64
1305 root 1.90 C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1306 root 1.73 faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1307     C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1308     watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1309     making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1310     (note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1311     inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1312 root 1.64
1313 root 1.73 The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1314 root 1.64 more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1315 root 1.68 precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1316     file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1317     employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1318 root 1.87 hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1319     above).
1320 root 1.68
1321 root 1.103 C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1322     select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1323     be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1324     memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1325     as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1326 root 1.87 requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1327     invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1328 root 1.103 implementation.
1329    
1330     The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1331     for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1332     small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1333     optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1334     using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1335     memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1336     design).
1337 root 1.72
1338 root 1.91 =head3 Summary
1339 root 1.72
1340 root 1.87 =over 4
1341    
1342 root 1.89 =item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1343     (even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1344     performance with or without AnyEvent.
1345 root 1.72
1346 root 1.87 =item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1347 root 1.89 the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1348 root 1.73 adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1349 root 1.72
1350 root 1.90 =item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1351 root 1.72 reasonable memory usage.
1352 root 1.64
1353 root 1.87 =back
1354    
1355 root 1.91 =head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1356    
1357     This benchmark atcually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1358     creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socketpair, a
1359     timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1360     watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1361     watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1362    
1363     The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1364     are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1365     fds for each loop iterstaion, but which fds these are is random). The
1366     timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1367     most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1368    
1369     In this benchmark, we use 10000 socketpairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1370     (1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1371 root 1.92 connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1372 root 1.91
1373     Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1374     distribution.
1375    
1376     =head3 Explanation of the columns
1377    
1378     I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1379 root 1.94 each server has a read and write socket end).
1380 root 1.91
1381     I<create> is the time it takes to create a socketpair (which is
1382     nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1383    
1384     I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1385     single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1386 root 1.93 it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1387     a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1388 root 1.91
1389     =head3 Results
1390    
1391     name sockets create request
1392     EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1393 root 1.99 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1394 root 1.91 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1395     Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1396     POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1397    
1398     =head3 Discussion
1399    
1400     This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1401     particular event loop.
1402    
1403     EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1404     is relatively high, though.
1405    
1406     Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1407     loops Event and Glib.
1408    
1409     Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1410     understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1411     the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1412     uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1413    
1414     Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1415     clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1416    
1417     POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1418     as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1419     it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1420    
1421     =head3 Summary
1422    
1423     =over 4
1424    
1425 root 1.103 =item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1426 root 1.91
1427     =item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1428    
1429     =back
1430    
1431     =head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1432    
1433     While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1434     large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1435     I/O watchers.
1436    
1437     In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1438     case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1439     one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1440     well.
1441    
1442     The columns are identical to the previous table.
1443    
1444     =head3 Results
1445    
1446     name sockets create request
1447     EV 16 20.00 6.54
1448 root 1.99 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1449 root 1.91 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1450     Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1451     POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1452    
1453     =head3 Discussion
1454    
1455     The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1456     server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1457     in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1458 root 1.97 to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1459     speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1460     them).
1461 root 1.91
1462     EV is again fastest.
1463    
1464 root 1.102 Perl again comes second. It is noticably faster than the C-based event
1465     loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1466     matter.
1467 root 1.91
1468 root 1.97 POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1469 root 1.91 others.
1470    
1471     =head3 Summary
1472    
1473     =over 4
1474    
1475     =item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1476     watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1477    
1478     =back
1479    
1480 root 1.64
1481 root 1.55 =head1 FORK
1482    
1483     Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1484 root 1.104 because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1485     calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1486 root 1.55
1487     If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1488     watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1489    
1490 root 1.64
1491 root 1.55 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1492    
1493     AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1494     $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1495     execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1496     make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1497     will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1498     specified in the variable.
1499    
1500     You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1501     before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1502    
1503     BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1504    
1505     use AnyEvent;
1506    
1507 root 1.107 Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1508     be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1509     probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL).
1510    
1511 root 1.64
1512 root 1.2 =head1 SEE ALSO
1513    
1514 root 1.125 Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1515    
1516 root 1.108 Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1517     L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
1518    
1519     Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1520     L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1521     L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1522     L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1523    
1524 root 1.125 Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1525     servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1526    
1527 root 1.122 Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1528    
1529 root 1.108 Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1530 root 1.5
1531 root 1.125 Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1532 root 1.2
1533 root 1.64
1534 root 1.54 =head1 AUTHOR
1535    
1536     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1537     http://home.schmorp.de/
1538 root 1.2
1539     =cut
1540    
1541     1
1542 root 1.1