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Revision: 1.131
Committed: Sat May 24 17:48:38 2008 UTC (16 years, 1 month ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rel-4_0
Changes since 1.130: +17 -2 lines
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File Contents

# 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 1.128 modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63 root 1.53 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 root 1.128 the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
114 root 1.14
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 elmex 1.129 Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
243     invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
244 root 1.53 that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
245 elmex 1.129 but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
246 root 1.53
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 elmex 1.129 After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
316 root 1.131 by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
317     were a callback).
318 root 1.105
319     Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
320     optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
321 elmex 1.129 in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
322     another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
323 root 1.105 used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
324     a result.
325 root 1.14
326 root 1.105 Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
327     for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
328 root 1.53 then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
329 root 1.105 availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
330 root 1.114 called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
331 root 1.53
332 root 1.105 You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
333     you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
334 root 1.114 could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
335 root 1.106 button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
336 root 1.53
337     Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
338 elmex 1.129 two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
339 root 1.53 lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
340     you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
341     as this asks for trouble.
342 root 1.41
343 root 1.105 Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
344     used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
345     easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
346     AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
347     it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
348    
349     There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
350 root 1.106 eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
351     for the send to occur.
352 root 1.105
353 root 1.131 Example: wait for a timer.
354 root 1.105
355     # wait till the result is ready
356     my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
357    
358     # do something such as adding a timer
359 root 1.106 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
360 root 1.105 # when the "result" is ready.
361     # in this case, we simply use a timer:
362     my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
363     after => 1,
364 root 1.106 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
365 root 1.105 );
366    
367     # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
368 root 1.106 # calls send
369 root 1.114 $result_ready->recv;
370 root 1.105
371 root 1.131 Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that
372     condition variables are also code references.
373    
374     my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
375     my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
376     $done->recv;
377    
378 root 1.105 =head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
379    
380     These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
381 root 1.106 code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
382 root 1.105 the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
383     uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
384 root 1.2
385 root 1.1 =over 4
386    
387 root 1.106 =item $cv->send (...)
388 root 1.105
389 root 1.114 Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
390     calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
391 root 1.106 called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
392 root 1.105
393     If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
394 root 1.106 immediately from within send.
395 root 1.105
396 root 1.106 Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
397 root 1.114 future C<< ->recv >> calls.
398 root 1.105
399 root 1.131 Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly (as a
400     code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling C<send>.
401    
402 root 1.105 =item $cv->croak ($error)
403    
404 root 1.114 Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
405 root 1.105 C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
406    
407     This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
408     user/consumer.
409    
410     =item $cv->begin ([group callback])
411    
412     =item $cv->end
413    
414 root 1.114 These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
415    
416 root 1.105 These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
417     one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
418     to use a condition variable for the whole process.
419    
420     Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
421     C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
422     >>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
423 root 1.106 is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
424     callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
425 root 1.105
426     Let's clarify this with the ping example:
427    
428     my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
429    
430     my %result;
431 root 1.106 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
432 root 1.105
433     for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
434     $cv->begin;
435     ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
436     $result{$host} = ...;
437     $cv->end;
438     };
439     }
440    
441     $cv->end;
442    
443     This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
444 root 1.106 C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
445 root 1.105 order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
446     each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
447     it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
448     results arrive is not relevant.
449    
450     There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
451     loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
452     to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
453 root 1.106 C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
454 root 1.105 doesn't execute once).
455    
456     This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
457     use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
458     is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
459 elmex 1.129 C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
460 root 1.105
461     =back
462    
463     =head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
464    
465     These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
466     code awaits the condition.
467    
468 root 1.106 =over 4
469    
470 root 1.114 =item $cv->recv
471 root 1.14
472 root 1.106 Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
473 root 1.105 >> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
474     normally.
475    
476     You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
477     will return immediately.
478    
479     If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
480     function will call C<croak>.
481 root 1.14
482 root 1.106 In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
483 root 1.105 in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
484 root 1.14
485 root 1.47 Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
486 root 1.53 (programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
487     using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
488 root 1.52 caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
489 root 1.47 condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
490     callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
491 elmex 1.129 while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
492 root 1.47
493 root 1.114 Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
494     sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
495 root 1.47 multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
496 root 1.108 can supply.
497    
498     The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
499     fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
500     versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
501 root 1.114 C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
502 root 1.108 coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
503 root 1.47
504 root 1.114 You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
505     only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
506 root 1.105 time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
507     waits otherwise.
508 root 1.53
509 root 1.106 =item $bool = $cv->ready
510    
511     Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
512     C<croak> have been called.
513    
514     =item $cb = $cv->cb ([new callback])
515    
516     This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
517     replaces it before doing so.
518    
519     The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
520 root 1.114 C<send> or C<croak> are called. Calling C<recv> inside the callback
521 root 1.106 or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
522    
523 root 1.53 =back
524 root 1.14
525 root 1.53 =head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
526 root 1.16
527     =over 4
528    
529     =item $AnyEvent::MODEL
530    
531     Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
532     contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
533     Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
534     C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
535     AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
536    
537     The known classes so far are:
538    
539 root 1.56 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
540     AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
541 root 1.104 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
542 root 1.48 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
543 root 1.16 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
544 root 1.56 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
545 root 1.55 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
546 root 1.61 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
547    
548     There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
549     watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
550     POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
551     second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
552 root 1.62 AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
553 root 1.61 it's adaptor.
554 root 1.16
555 root 1.62 AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
556     autodetecting them.
557    
558 root 1.19 =item AnyEvent::detect
559    
560 root 1.53 Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
561     if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
562     have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
563     runtime.
564 root 1.19
565 root 1.111 =item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
566 root 1.109
567     Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
568     autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
569    
570 root 1.110 If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
571 root 1.112 that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
572     L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
573 root 1.110
574 root 1.111 =item @AnyEvent::post_detect
575 root 1.108
576     If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
577     before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
578     the event loop has been chosen.
579    
580     You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
581     if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
582     and the array will be ignored.
583    
584 root 1.111 Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
585 root 1.109
586 root 1.16 =back
587    
588 root 1.14 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
589    
590 root 1.53 As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
591 root 1.14 freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
592    
593 root 1.53 Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
594 root 1.14 decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
595     by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
596     to load the event module first.
597    
598 root 1.114 Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
599 root 1.106 the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
600 root 1.53 because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
601     events is to stay interactive.
602    
603 root 1.114 It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
604 root 1.53 requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
605 root 1.114 called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
606 root 1.53 freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
607    
608 root 1.14 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
609    
610     There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
611     dictate which event model to use.
612    
613     If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
614 root 1.53 do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
615     decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
616 root 1.14
617 root 1.53 If the main program relies on a specific event model. For example, in
618     Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module. You should load the
619     event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
620     speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
621     modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
622     decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
623     might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
624 root 1.14
625     You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
626 root 1.53 loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar
627     behaviour everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose is generally better.
628 root 1.14
629 elmex 1.100 =head1 OTHER MODULES
630    
631 root 1.101 The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
632     AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
633     in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
634     available via CPAN.
635    
636     =over 4
637    
638     =item L<AnyEvent::Util>
639    
640     Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
641     functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
642    
643     =item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
644 elmex 1.100
645 root 1.101 Provide read and write buffers and manages watchers for reads and writes.
646 elmex 1.100
647 root 1.125 =item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
648    
649     Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
650     addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
651     connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
652    
653 root 1.101 =item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
654    
655     Provides a simple web application server framework.
656    
657     =item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
658    
659 root 1.125 Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
660 elmex 1.100
661     =item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
662    
663 root 1.101 The fastest ping in the west.
664    
665 elmex 1.100 =item L<Net::IRC3>
666    
667 root 1.101 AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
668    
669 elmex 1.100 =item L<Net::XMPP2>
670    
671 root 1.101 AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
672    
673     =item L<Net::FCP>
674    
675     AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
676     of AnyEvent.
677    
678     =item L<Event::ExecFlow>
679    
680     High level API for event-based execution flow control.
681    
682     =item L<Coro>
683    
684 root 1.108 Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
685 root 1.101
686 root 1.113 =item L<AnyEvent::AIO>, L<IO::AIO>
687 root 1.101
688 root 1.113 Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
689     programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses IO::AIO and AnyEvent
690     together.
691 root 1.101
692 root 1.113 =item L<AnyEvent::BDB>, L<BDB>
693 root 1.101
694 root 1.113 Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
695     IO::AIO and AnyEvent together.
696 root 1.101
697 root 1.113 =item L<IO::Lambda>
698 root 1.101
699 root 1.113 The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
700 root 1.101
701 elmex 1.100 =back
702    
703 root 1.1 =cut
704    
705     package AnyEvent;
706    
707 root 1.2 no warnings;
708 root 1.19 use strict;
709 root 1.24
710 root 1.1 use Carp;
711    
712 root 1.130 our $VERSION = '4.0';
713 root 1.2 our $MODEL;
714 root 1.1
715 root 1.2 our $AUTOLOAD;
716     our @ISA;
717 root 1.1
718 root 1.7 our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
719    
720 root 1.8 our @REGISTRY;
721    
722 root 1.126 our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2)
723    
724     {
725     my $idx;
726     $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
727     for split /\s*,\s*/, $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
728     }
729    
730 root 1.1 my @models = (
731 root 1.33 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
732 root 1.18 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
733     [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
734 root 1.62 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
735     [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
736 root 1.18 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
737 root 1.61 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
738 root 1.104 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
739 root 1.61 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
740 root 1.56 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
741 root 1.61 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
742 root 1.1 );
743    
744 root 1.106 our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
745 root 1.3
746 root 1.111 our @post_detect;
747 root 1.109
748 root 1.111 sub post_detect(&) {
749 root 1.110 my ($cb) = @_;
750    
751 root 1.109 if ($MODEL) {
752 root 1.110 $cb->();
753    
754     1
755 root 1.109 } else {
756 root 1.111 push @post_detect, $cb;
757 root 1.110
758     defined wantarray
759 root 1.119 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
760 root 1.110 : ()
761 root 1.109 }
762     }
763 root 1.108
764 root 1.119 sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
765 root 1.111 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
766 root 1.110 }
767    
768 root 1.19 sub detect() {
769     unless ($MODEL) {
770     no strict 'refs';
771 root 1.1
772 root 1.55 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
773     my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
774     if (eval "require $model") {
775     $MODEL = $model;
776     warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
777 root 1.60 } else {
778     warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
779 root 1.2 }
780 root 1.1 }
781    
782 root 1.55 # check for already loaded models
783 root 1.2 unless ($MODEL) {
784 root 1.61 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
785 root 1.8 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
786 root 1.55 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
787     if (eval "require $model") {
788     $MODEL = $model;
789     warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
790     last;
791     }
792 root 1.8 }
793 root 1.2 }
794    
795 root 1.55 unless ($MODEL) {
796     # try to load a model
797    
798     for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
799     my ($package, $model) = @$_;
800     if (eval "require $package"
801     and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
802     and eval "require $model") {
803     $MODEL = $model;
804     warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
805     last;
806     }
807     }
808    
809     $MODEL
810 root 1.108 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
811 root 1.55 }
812 root 1.1 }
813 root 1.19
814     unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
815     push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
816 root 1.108
817 root 1.111 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
818 root 1.1 }
819    
820 root 1.19 $MODEL
821     }
822    
823     sub AUTOLOAD {
824     (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
825    
826     $method{$func}
827     or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
828    
829     detect unless $MODEL;
830 root 1.2
831     my $class = shift;
832 root 1.18 $class->$func (@_);
833 root 1.1 }
834    
835 root 1.19 package AnyEvent::Base;
836    
837 root 1.114 # default implementation for ->condvar
838 root 1.20
839     sub condvar {
840 root 1.124 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
841 root 1.20 }
842    
843     # default implementation for ->signal
844 root 1.19
845     our %SIG_CB;
846    
847     sub signal {
848     my (undef, %arg) = @_;
849    
850     my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
851     or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
852    
853 root 1.31 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
854 root 1.19 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
855 root 1.20 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
856 root 1.19 };
857    
858 root 1.20 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
859 root 1.19 }
860    
861     sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
862     my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
863    
864     delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
865    
866     $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
867     }
868    
869 root 1.20 # default implementation for ->child
870    
871     our %PID_CB;
872     our $CHLD_W;
873 root 1.37 our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
874 root 1.20 our $PID_IDLE;
875     our $WNOHANG;
876    
877     sub _child_wait {
878 root 1.38 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
879 root 1.32 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
880     (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
881 root 1.20 }
882    
883     undef $PID_IDLE;
884     }
885    
886 root 1.37 sub _sigchld {
887     # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
888     $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
889     undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
890     &_child_wait;
891     });
892     }
893    
894 root 1.20 sub child {
895     my (undef, %arg) = @_;
896    
897 root 1.31 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
898 root 1.20 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
899    
900     $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
901    
902     unless ($WNOHANG) {
903     $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
904     }
905    
906 root 1.23 unless ($CHLD_W) {
907 root 1.37 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
908     # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
909     &_sigchld;
910 root 1.23 }
911 root 1.20
912     bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
913     }
914    
915     sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
916     my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
917    
918     delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
919     delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
920    
921     undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
922     }
923    
924 root 1.116 package AnyEvent::CondVar;
925    
926     our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
927    
928     package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
929 root 1.114
930 root 1.131 use overload
931     '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
932     fallback => 1;
933    
934 root 1.114 sub _send {
935 root 1.116 # nop
936 root 1.114 }
937    
938     sub send {
939 root 1.115 my $cv = shift;
940     $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
941 root 1.116 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
942 root 1.115 $cv->_send;
943 root 1.114 }
944    
945     sub croak {
946 root 1.115 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
947 root 1.114 $_[0]->send;
948     }
949    
950     sub ready {
951     $_[0]{_ae_sent}
952     }
953    
954 root 1.116 sub _wait {
955     AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
956     }
957    
958 root 1.114 sub recv {
959 root 1.116 $_[0]->_wait;
960 root 1.114
961     Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
962     wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
963     }
964    
965     sub cb {
966     $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
967     $_[0]{_ae_cb}
968     }
969    
970     sub begin {
971     ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
972     $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
973     }
974    
975     sub end {
976     return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
977 root 1.124 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
978 root 1.114 }
979    
980     # undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
981     *broadcast = \&send;
982 root 1.116 *wait = \&_wait;
983 root 1.114
984 root 1.8 =head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
985    
986 root 1.53 This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
987     a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
988     provide AnyEvent compatibility.
989    
990 root 1.8 If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
991     supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
992 root 1.11 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
993 root 1.8 the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
994     C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
995 root 1.53 AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
996 root 1.8
997     Example:
998    
999     push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1000    
1001 root 1.12 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1002 root 1.53 package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1003    
1004     When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1005     will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1006     C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1007    
1008     The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1009     L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1010     and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1011     see the sources.
1012    
1013     If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1014     provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1015    
1016     The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1017     terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1018     in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1019     inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1020 root 1.8 I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1021    
1022 root 1.12 I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1023     condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1024     C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1025 root 1.53 not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1026 root 1.12
1027 root 1.7 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1028    
1029     The following environment variables are used by this module:
1030    
1031 root 1.55 =over 4
1032    
1033     =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1034    
1035 root 1.60 By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1036     conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1037     talkative.
1038    
1039     When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1040     conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1041     C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1042    
1043 root 1.55 When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1044     model it chooses.
1045    
1046     =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1047    
1048     This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1049 root 1.128 auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1050 root 1.55 entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1051     and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1052     used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1053 root 1.128 auto detection and -probing.
1054 root 1.55
1055     This functionality might change in future versions.
1056    
1057     For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1058     could start your program like this:
1059    
1060     PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1061    
1062 root 1.125 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1063    
1064     Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1065     for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1066 root 1.128 of auto probing).
1067 root 1.125
1068     Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1069     current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1070     used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1071     list.
1072    
1073 root 1.127 This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1074     against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1075     small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1076    
1077 root 1.125 Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1078     but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1079     - only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1080 root 1.128 addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1081 root 1.125 IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1082    
1083 root 1.127 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1084    
1085 root 1.128 Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1086 root 1.127 for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1087     some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1088     default.
1089    
1090     Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1091     EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1092    
1093 root 1.55 =back
1094 root 1.7
1095 root 1.53 =head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1096 root 1.2
1097 root 1.78 The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1098 root 1.53 to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1099     program when the user enters quit:
1100 root 1.2
1101     use AnyEvent;
1102    
1103     my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1104    
1105 root 1.53 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1106     fh => \*STDIN,
1107     poll => 'r',
1108     cb => sub {
1109     warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
1110     chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
1111     warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
1112 root 1.118 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1113 root 1.53 },
1114     );
1115 root 1.2
1116     my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
1117    
1118     sub new_timer {
1119     $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
1120     warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
1121     &new_timer; # and restart the time
1122     });
1123     }
1124    
1125     new_timer; # create first timer
1126    
1127 root 1.118 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1128 root 1.2
1129 root 1.5 =head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
1130    
1131     Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
1132     API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
1133    
1134     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
1135    
1136     my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
1137     $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
1138     my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
1139    
1140     The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
1141     given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
1142    
1143     sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
1144    
1145     And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
1146     L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
1147    
1148     More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
1149     (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
1150    
1151     my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
1152    
1153     It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
1154     of the request:
1155    
1156     $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
1157    
1158     It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
1159    
1160     socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
1161     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
1162     connect $txn->{fh}, ...
1163     and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
1164     and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
1165     and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
1166    
1167 root 1.6 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1168 root 1.5 or the connection succeeds:
1169    
1170     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
1171    
1172     And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
1173     called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
1174     writing.
1175    
1176     The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
1177     request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
1178     data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
1179     this example:
1180    
1181     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
1182     syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
1183     or die "connection or write error";
1184     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
1185    
1186     Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
1187 root 1.128 result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
1188 root 1.5
1189     sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1190    
1191     if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1192     $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1193 root 1.118 $txn->{finished}->send;
1194 root 1.6 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1195 root 1.5 }
1196    
1197     The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
1198     request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
1199     data:
1200    
1201 root 1.118 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1202 root 1.6 return $txn->{result};
1203 root 1.5
1204     The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1205 root 1.128 that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1206 root 1.52 whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1207 root 1.5 and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
1208     problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
1209     random callback.
1210    
1211     All of this enables the following usage styles:
1212    
1213     1. Blocking:
1214    
1215     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
1216    
1217 root 1.49 2. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1218 root 1.5
1219     my @datas = map $_->result,
1220     map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
1221     @urls;
1222    
1223     Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
1224     anything about events.
1225    
1226 root 1.49 3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1227 root 1.5
1228 root 1.49 use EV;
1229 root 1.5
1230     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1231     my $txn = shift;
1232     my $data = $txn->result;
1233     ...
1234     });
1235    
1236 root 1.49 EV::loop;
1237 root 1.5
1238     3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
1239    
1240     use AnyEvent;
1241    
1242     my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
1243    
1244     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1245     ...
1246 root 1.118 $quit->send;
1247 root 1.5 });
1248    
1249 root 1.118 $quit->recv;
1250 root 1.5
1251 root 1.64
1252 root 1.91 =head1 BENCHMARKS
1253 root 1.64
1254 root 1.65 To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1255 root 1.91 over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1256     of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1257 root 1.77
1258 root 1.91 =head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1259    
1260     Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1261 root 1.128 through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1262 root 1.91 timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1263     which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1264    
1265     Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1266     distribution.
1267    
1268     =head3 Explanation of the columns
1269 root 1.68
1270     I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1271     different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1272     loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1273     and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1274     would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1275     of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1276    
1277     I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1278     RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1279     and Perl-based overheads.
1280    
1281     I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1282     takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1283     all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1284     and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1285    
1286     I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1287     callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1288 root 1.118 invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1289 root 1.69 signal the end of this phase.
1290 root 1.64
1291 root 1.71 I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1292 root 1.68 watcher.
1293 root 1.64
1294 root 1.91 =head3 Results
1295 root 1.64
1296 root 1.75 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1297     EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1298 root 1.83 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1299     CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1300     Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1301     Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1302 root 1.98 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1303 root 1.83 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1304     Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1305     POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1306     POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1307 root 1.64
1308 root 1.91 =head3 Discussion
1309 root 1.68
1310     The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1311     well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1312     can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1313 root 1.80 file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1314     the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1315     boost.
1316 root 1.68
1317 root 1.95 Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1318     overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1319     the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1320     higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1321    
1322 root 1.96 To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1323     benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1324     EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1325     cycles with POE.
1326    
1327 root 1.68 C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1328 root 1.84 maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1329     far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1330     natively.
1331 root 1.64
1332     The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1333 root 1.86 constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1334     interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1335     adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1336     performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1337     them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1338 root 1.64
1339 root 1.90 The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1340     cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1341 root 1.64
1342 root 1.90 C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1343 root 1.73 faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1344     C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1345     watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1346     making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1347     (note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1348     inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1349 root 1.64
1350 root 1.73 The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1351 root 1.64 more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1352 root 1.68 precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1353     file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1354     employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1355 root 1.87 hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1356     above).
1357 root 1.68
1358 root 1.103 C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1359     select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1360     be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1361     memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1362     as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1363 root 1.87 requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1364     invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1365 root 1.103 implementation.
1366    
1367     The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1368     for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1369     small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1370     optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1371     using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1372     memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1373     design).
1374 root 1.72
1375 root 1.91 =head3 Summary
1376 root 1.72
1377 root 1.87 =over 4
1378    
1379 root 1.89 =item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1380     (even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1381     performance with or without AnyEvent.
1382 root 1.72
1383 root 1.87 =item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1384 root 1.89 the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1385 root 1.73 adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1386 root 1.72
1387 root 1.90 =item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1388 root 1.72 reasonable memory usage.
1389 root 1.64
1390 root 1.87 =back
1391    
1392 root 1.91 =head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1393    
1394 root 1.128 This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1395     creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1396 root 1.91 timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1397     watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1398     watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1399    
1400     The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1401     are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1402 root 1.128 fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1403 root 1.91 timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1404     most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1405    
1406 root 1.128 In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1407 root 1.91 (1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1408 root 1.92 connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1409 root 1.91
1410     Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1411     distribution.
1412    
1413     =head3 Explanation of the columns
1414    
1415     I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1416 root 1.94 each server has a read and write socket end).
1417 root 1.91
1418 root 1.128 I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1419 root 1.91 nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1420    
1421     I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1422     single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1423 root 1.93 it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1424     a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1425 root 1.91
1426     =head3 Results
1427    
1428     name sockets create request
1429     EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1430 root 1.99 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1431 root 1.91 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1432     Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1433     POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1434    
1435     =head3 Discussion
1436    
1437     This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1438     particular event loop.
1439    
1440     EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1441     is relatively high, though.
1442    
1443     Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1444     loops Event and Glib.
1445    
1446     Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1447     understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1448     the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1449     uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1450    
1451     Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1452     clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1453    
1454     POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1455     as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1456     it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1457    
1458     =head3 Summary
1459    
1460     =over 4
1461    
1462 root 1.103 =item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1463 root 1.91
1464     =item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1465    
1466     =back
1467    
1468     =head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1469    
1470     While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1471     large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1472     I/O watchers.
1473    
1474     In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1475     case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1476     one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1477     well.
1478    
1479     The columns are identical to the previous table.
1480    
1481     =head3 Results
1482    
1483     name sockets create request
1484     EV 16 20.00 6.54
1485 root 1.99 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1486 root 1.91 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1487     Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1488     POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1489    
1490     =head3 Discussion
1491    
1492     The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1493     server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1494     in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1495 root 1.97 to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1496     speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1497     them).
1498 root 1.91
1499     EV is again fastest.
1500    
1501 elmex 1.129 Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1502 root 1.102 loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1503     matter.
1504 root 1.91
1505 root 1.97 POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1506 root 1.91 others.
1507    
1508     =head3 Summary
1509    
1510     =over 4
1511    
1512     =item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1513     watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1514    
1515     =back
1516    
1517 root 1.64
1518 root 1.55 =head1 FORK
1519    
1520     Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1521 root 1.104 because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1522     calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1523 root 1.55
1524     If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1525     watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1526    
1527 root 1.64
1528 root 1.55 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1529    
1530     AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1531     $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1532     execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1533     make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1534     will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1535     specified in the variable.
1536    
1537     You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1538     before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1539    
1540     BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1541    
1542     use AnyEvent;
1543    
1544 root 1.107 Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1545     be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1546     probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL).
1547    
1548 root 1.64
1549 root 1.2 =head1 SEE ALSO
1550    
1551 root 1.125 Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1552    
1553 root 1.108 Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1554     L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
1555    
1556     Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1557     L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1558     L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1559     L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1560    
1561 root 1.125 Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1562     servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1563    
1564 root 1.122 Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1565    
1566 root 1.108 Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1567 root 1.5
1568 root 1.125 Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1569 root 1.2
1570 root 1.64
1571 root 1.54 =head1 AUTHOR
1572    
1573     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1574     http://home.schmorp.de/
1575 root 1.2
1576     =cut
1577    
1578     1
1579 root 1.1