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Revision: 1.134
Committed: Sun May 25 04:44:04 2008 UTC (16 years, 1 month ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.133: +26 -27 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 1.128 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 1.134 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 root 1.53 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 root 1.134 You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
626     C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
627     everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
628    
629     =head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
630    
631     Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
632     only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
633    
634     In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
635    
636     AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
637    
638     This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
639    
640     Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
641     it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
642     variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
643     exit cleanly.
644    
645 root 1.14
646 elmex 1.100 =head1 OTHER MODULES
647    
648 root 1.101 The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
649     AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
650     in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
651     available via CPAN.
652    
653     =over 4
654    
655     =item L<AnyEvent::Util>
656    
657     Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
658     functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
659    
660     =item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
661 elmex 1.100
662 root 1.101 Provide read and write buffers and manages watchers for reads and writes.
663 elmex 1.100
664 root 1.125 =item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
665    
666     Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
667     addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
668     connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
669    
670 root 1.134 =item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
671    
672     Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
673    
674 root 1.101 =item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
675    
676     Provides a simple web application server framework.
677    
678 elmex 1.100 =item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
679    
680 root 1.101 The fastest ping in the west.
681    
682 elmex 1.100 =item L<Net::IRC3>
683    
684 root 1.101 AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
685    
686 elmex 1.100 =item L<Net::XMPP2>
687    
688 root 1.101 AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
689    
690     =item L<Net::FCP>
691    
692     AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
693     of AnyEvent.
694    
695     =item L<Event::ExecFlow>
696    
697     High level API for event-based execution flow control.
698    
699     =item L<Coro>
700    
701 root 1.108 Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
702 root 1.101
703 root 1.113 =item L<AnyEvent::AIO>, L<IO::AIO>
704 root 1.101
705 root 1.113 Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
706     programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses IO::AIO and AnyEvent
707     together.
708 root 1.101
709 root 1.113 =item L<AnyEvent::BDB>, L<BDB>
710 root 1.101
711 root 1.113 Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
712     IO::AIO and AnyEvent together.
713 root 1.101
714 root 1.113 =item L<IO::Lambda>
715 root 1.101
716 root 1.113 The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
717 root 1.101
718 elmex 1.100 =back
719    
720 root 1.1 =cut
721    
722     package AnyEvent;
723    
724 root 1.2 no warnings;
725 root 1.19 use strict;
726 root 1.24
727 root 1.1 use Carp;
728    
729 root 1.132 our $VERSION = '4.03';
730 root 1.2 our $MODEL;
731 root 1.1
732 root 1.2 our $AUTOLOAD;
733     our @ISA;
734 root 1.1
735 root 1.7 our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
736    
737 root 1.8 our @REGISTRY;
738    
739 root 1.126 our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2)
740    
741     {
742     my $idx;
743     $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
744     for split /\s*,\s*/, $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
745     }
746    
747 root 1.1 my @models = (
748 root 1.33 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
749 root 1.18 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
750     [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
751 root 1.62 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
752     [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
753 root 1.18 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
754 root 1.61 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
755 root 1.104 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
756 root 1.61 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
757 root 1.56 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
758 root 1.61 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
759 root 1.1 );
760    
761 root 1.106 our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
762 root 1.3
763 root 1.111 our @post_detect;
764 root 1.109
765 root 1.111 sub post_detect(&) {
766 root 1.110 my ($cb) = @_;
767    
768 root 1.109 if ($MODEL) {
769 root 1.110 $cb->();
770    
771     1
772 root 1.109 } else {
773 root 1.111 push @post_detect, $cb;
774 root 1.110
775     defined wantarray
776 root 1.119 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
777 root 1.110 : ()
778 root 1.109 }
779     }
780 root 1.108
781 root 1.119 sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
782 root 1.111 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
783 root 1.110 }
784    
785 root 1.19 sub detect() {
786     unless ($MODEL) {
787     no strict 'refs';
788 root 1.1
789 root 1.55 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
790     my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
791     if (eval "require $model") {
792     $MODEL = $model;
793     warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
794 root 1.60 } else {
795     warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
796 root 1.2 }
797 root 1.1 }
798    
799 root 1.55 # check for already loaded models
800 root 1.2 unless ($MODEL) {
801 root 1.61 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
802 root 1.8 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
803 root 1.55 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
804     if (eval "require $model") {
805     $MODEL = $model;
806     warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
807     last;
808     }
809 root 1.8 }
810 root 1.2 }
811    
812 root 1.55 unless ($MODEL) {
813     # try to load a model
814    
815     for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
816     my ($package, $model) = @$_;
817     if (eval "require $package"
818     and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
819     and eval "require $model") {
820     $MODEL = $model;
821     warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
822     last;
823     }
824     }
825    
826     $MODEL
827 root 1.108 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
828 root 1.55 }
829 root 1.1 }
830 root 1.19
831     unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
832     push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
833 root 1.108
834 root 1.111 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
835 root 1.1 }
836    
837 root 1.19 $MODEL
838     }
839    
840     sub AUTOLOAD {
841     (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
842    
843     $method{$func}
844     or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
845    
846     detect unless $MODEL;
847 root 1.2
848     my $class = shift;
849 root 1.18 $class->$func (@_);
850 root 1.1 }
851    
852 root 1.19 package AnyEvent::Base;
853    
854 root 1.114 # default implementation for ->condvar
855 root 1.20
856     sub condvar {
857 root 1.124 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
858 root 1.20 }
859    
860     # default implementation for ->signal
861 root 1.19
862     our %SIG_CB;
863    
864     sub signal {
865     my (undef, %arg) = @_;
866    
867     my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
868     or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
869    
870 root 1.31 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
871 root 1.19 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
872 root 1.20 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
873 root 1.19 };
874    
875 root 1.20 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
876 root 1.19 }
877    
878     sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
879     my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
880    
881     delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
882    
883     $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
884     }
885    
886 root 1.20 # default implementation for ->child
887    
888     our %PID_CB;
889     our $CHLD_W;
890 root 1.37 our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
891 root 1.20 our $PID_IDLE;
892     our $WNOHANG;
893    
894     sub _child_wait {
895 root 1.38 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
896 root 1.32 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
897     (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
898 root 1.20 }
899    
900     undef $PID_IDLE;
901     }
902    
903 root 1.37 sub _sigchld {
904     # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
905     $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
906     undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
907     &_child_wait;
908     });
909     }
910    
911 root 1.20 sub child {
912     my (undef, %arg) = @_;
913    
914 root 1.31 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
915 root 1.20 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
916    
917     $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
918    
919     unless ($WNOHANG) {
920     $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
921     }
922    
923 root 1.23 unless ($CHLD_W) {
924 root 1.37 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
925     # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
926     &_sigchld;
927 root 1.23 }
928 root 1.20
929     bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
930     }
931    
932     sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
933     my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
934    
935     delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
936     delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
937    
938     undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
939     }
940    
941 root 1.116 package AnyEvent::CondVar;
942    
943     our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
944    
945     package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
946 root 1.114
947 root 1.131 use overload
948     '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
949     fallback => 1;
950    
951 root 1.114 sub _send {
952 root 1.116 # nop
953 root 1.114 }
954    
955     sub send {
956 root 1.115 my $cv = shift;
957     $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
958 root 1.116 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
959 root 1.115 $cv->_send;
960 root 1.114 }
961    
962     sub croak {
963 root 1.115 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
964 root 1.114 $_[0]->send;
965     }
966    
967     sub ready {
968     $_[0]{_ae_sent}
969     }
970    
971 root 1.116 sub _wait {
972     AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
973     }
974    
975 root 1.114 sub recv {
976 root 1.116 $_[0]->_wait;
977 root 1.114
978     Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
979     wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
980     }
981    
982     sub cb {
983     $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
984     $_[0]{_ae_cb}
985     }
986    
987     sub begin {
988     ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
989     $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
990     }
991    
992     sub end {
993     return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
994 root 1.124 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
995 root 1.114 }
996    
997     # undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
998     *broadcast = \&send;
999 root 1.116 *wait = \&_wait;
1000 root 1.114
1001 root 1.8 =head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1002    
1003 root 1.53 This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1004     a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1005     provide AnyEvent compatibility.
1006    
1007 root 1.8 If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
1008     supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
1009 root 1.11 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
1010 root 1.8 the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
1011     C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
1012 root 1.53 AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
1013 root 1.8
1014     Example:
1015    
1016     push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1017    
1018 root 1.12 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1019 root 1.53 package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1020    
1021     When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1022     will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1023     C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1024    
1025     The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1026     L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1027     and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1028     see the sources.
1029    
1030     If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1031     provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1032    
1033     The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1034     terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1035     in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1036     inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1037 root 1.8 I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1038    
1039 root 1.12 I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1040     condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1041     C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1042 root 1.53 not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1043 root 1.12
1044 root 1.7 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1045    
1046     The following environment variables are used by this module:
1047    
1048 root 1.55 =over 4
1049    
1050     =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1051    
1052 root 1.60 By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1053     conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1054     talkative.
1055    
1056     When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1057     conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1058     C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1059    
1060 root 1.55 When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1061     model it chooses.
1062    
1063     =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1064    
1065     This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1066 root 1.128 auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1067 root 1.55 entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1068     and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1069     used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1070 root 1.128 auto detection and -probing.
1071 root 1.55
1072     This functionality might change in future versions.
1073    
1074     For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1075     could start your program like this:
1076    
1077     PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1078    
1079 root 1.125 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1080    
1081     Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1082     for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1083 root 1.128 of auto probing).
1084 root 1.125
1085     Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1086     current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1087     used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1088     list.
1089    
1090 root 1.127 This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1091     against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1092     small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1093    
1094 root 1.125 Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1095     but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1096     - only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1097 root 1.128 addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1098 root 1.125 IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1099    
1100 root 1.127 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1101    
1102 root 1.128 Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1103 root 1.127 for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1104     some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1105     default.
1106    
1107     Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1108     EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1109    
1110 root 1.55 =back
1111 root 1.7
1112 root 1.53 =head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1113 root 1.2
1114 root 1.78 The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1115 root 1.53 to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1116     program when the user enters quit:
1117 root 1.2
1118     use AnyEvent;
1119    
1120     my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1121    
1122 root 1.53 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1123     fh => \*STDIN,
1124     poll => 'r',
1125     cb => sub {
1126     warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
1127     chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
1128     warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
1129 root 1.118 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1130 root 1.53 },
1131     );
1132 root 1.2
1133     my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
1134    
1135     sub new_timer {
1136     $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
1137     warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
1138     &new_timer; # and restart the time
1139     });
1140     }
1141    
1142     new_timer; # create first timer
1143    
1144 root 1.118 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1145 root 1.2
1146 root 1.5 =head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
1147    
1148     Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
1149     API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
1150    
1151     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
1152    
1153     my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
1154     $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
1155     my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
1156    
1157     The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
1158     given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
1159    
1160     sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
1161    
1162     And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
1163     L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
1164    
1165     More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
1166     (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
1167    
1168     my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
1169    
1170     It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
1171     of the request:
1172    
1173     $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
1174    
1175     It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
1176    
1177     socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
1178     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
1179     connect $txn->{fh}, ...
1180     and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
1181     and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
1182     and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
1183    
1184 root 1.6 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1185 root 1.5 or the connection succeeds:
1186    
1187     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
1188    
1189     And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
1190     called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
1191     writing.
1192    
1193     The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
1194     request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
1195     data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
1196     this example:
1197    
1198     fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
1199     syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
1200     or die "connection or write error";
1201     $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
1202    
1203     Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
1204 root 1.128 result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
1205 root 1.5
1206     sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1207    
1208     if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1209     $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1210 root 1.118 $txn->{finished}->send;
1211 root 1.6 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1212 root 1.5 }
1213    
1214     The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
1215     request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
1216     data:
1217    
1218 root 1.118 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1219 root 1.6 return $txn->{result};
1220 root 1.5
1221     The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1222 root 1.128 that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1223 root 1.52 whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1224 root 1.5 and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
1225     problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
1226     random callback.
1227    
1228     All of this enables the following usage styles:
1229    
1230     1. Blocking:
1231    
1232     my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
1233    
1234 root 1.49 2. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1235 root 1.5
1236     my @datas = map $_->result,
1237     map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
1238     @urls;
1239    
1240     Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
1241     anything about events.
1242    
1243 root 1.49 3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1244 root 1.5
1245 root 1.49 use EV;
1246 root 1.5
1247     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1248     my $txn = shift;
1249     my $data = $txn->result;
1250     ...
1251     });
1252    
1253 root 1.49 EV::loop;
1254 root 1.5
1255     3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
1256    
1257     use AnyEvent;
1258    
1259     my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
1260    
1261     $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1262     ...
1263 root 1.118 $quit->send;
1264 root 1.5 });
1265    
1266 root 1.118 $quit->recv;
1267 root 1.5
1268 root 1.64
1269 root 1.91 =head1 BENCHMARKS
1270 root 1.64
1271 root 1.65 To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1272 root 1.91 over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1273     of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1274 root 1.77
1275 root 1.91 =head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1276    
1277     Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1278 root 1.128 through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1279 root 1.91 timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1280     which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1281    
1282     Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1283     distribution.
1284    
1285     =head3 Explanation of the columns
1286 root 1.68
1287     I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1288     different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1289     loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1290     and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1291     would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1292     of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1293    
1294     I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1295     RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1296     and Perl-based overheads.
1297    
1298     I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1299     takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1300     all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1301     and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1302    
1303     I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1304     callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1305 root 1.118 invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1306 root 1.69 signal the end of this phase.
1307 root 1.64
1308 root 1.71 I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1309 root 1.68 watcher.
1310 root 1.64
1311 root 1.91 =head3 Results
1312 root 1.64
1313 root 1.75 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1314     EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1315 root 1.83 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1316     CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1317     Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1318     Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1319 root 1.98 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1320 root 1.83 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1321     Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1322     POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1323     POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1324 root 1.64
1325 root 1.91 =head3 Discussion
1326 root 1.68
1327     The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1328     well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1329     can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1330 root 1.80 file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1331     the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1332     boost.
1333 root 1.68
1334 root 1.95 Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1335     overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1336     the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1337     higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1338    
1339 root 1.96 To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1340     benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1341     EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1342     cycles with POE.
1343    
1344 root 1.68 C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1345 root 1.84 maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1346     far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1347     natively.
1348 root 1.64
1349     The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1350 root 1.86 constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1351     interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1352     adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1353     performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1354     them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1355 root 1.64
1356 root 1.90 The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1357     cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1358 root 1.64
1359 root 1.90 C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1360 root 1.73 faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1361     C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1362     watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1363     making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1364     (note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1365     inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1366 root 1.64
1367 root 1.73 The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1368 root 1.64 more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1369 root 1.68 precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1370     file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1371     employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1372 root 1.87 hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1373     above).
1374 root 1.68
1375 root 1.103 C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1376     select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1377     be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1378     memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1379     as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1380 root 1.87 requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1381     invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1382 root 1.103 implementation.
1383    
1384     The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1385     for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1386     small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1387     optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1388     using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1389     memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1390     design).
1391 root 1.72
1392 root 1.91 =head3 Summary
1393 root 1.72
1394 root 1.87 =over 4
1395    
1396 root 1.89 =item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1397     (even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1398     performance with or without AnyEvent.
1399 root 1.72
1400 root 1.87 =item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1401 root 1.89 the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1402 root 1.73 adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1403 root 1.72
1404 root 1.90 =item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1405 root 1.72 reasonable memory usage.
1406 root 1.64
1407 root 1.87 =back
1408    
1409 root 1.91 =head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1410    
1411 root 1.128 This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1412     creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1413 root 1.91 timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1414     watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1415     watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1416    
1417     The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1418     are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1419 root 1.128 fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1420 root 1.91 timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1421     most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1422    
1423 root 1.128 In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1424 root 1.91 (1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1425 root 1.92 connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1426 root 1.91
1427     Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1428     distribution.
1429    
1430     =head3 Explanation of the columns
1431    
1432     I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1433 root 1.94 each server has a read and write socket end).
1434 root 1.91
1435 root 1.128 I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1436 root 1.91 nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1437    
1438     I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1439     single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1440 root 1.93 it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1441     a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1442 root 1.91
1443     =head3 Results
1444    
1445     name sockets create request
1446     EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1447 root 1.99 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1448 root 1.91 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1449     Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1450     POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1451    
1452     =head3 Discussion
1453    
1454     This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1455     particular event loop.
1456    
1457     EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1458     is relatively high, though.
1459    
1460     Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1461     loops Event and Glib.
1462    
1463     Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1464     understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1465     the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1466     uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1467    
1468     Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1469     clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1470    
1471     POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1472     as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1473     it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1474    
1475     =head3 Summary
1476    
1477     =over 4
1478    
1479 root 1.103 =item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1480 root 1.91
1481     =item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1482    
1483     =back
1484    
1485     =head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1486    
1487     While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1488     large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1489     I/O watchers.
1490    
1491     In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1492     case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1493     one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1494     well.
1495    
1496     The columns are identical to the previous table.
1497    
1498     =head3 Results
1499    
1500     name sockets create request
1501     EV 16 20.00 6.54
1502 root 1.99 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1503 root 1.91 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1504     Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1505     POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1506    
1507     =head3 Discussion
1508    
1509     The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1510     server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1511     in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1512 root 1.97 to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1513     speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1514     them).
1515 root 1.91
1516     EV is again fastest.
1517    
1518 elmex 1.129 Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1519 root 1.102 loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1520     matter.
1521 root 1.91
1522 root 1.97 POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1523 root 1.91 others.
1524    
1525     =head3 Summary
1526    
1527     =over 4
1528    
1529     =item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1530     watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1531    
1532     =back
1533    
1534 root 1.64
1535 root 1.55 =head1 FORK
1536    
1537     Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1538 root 1.104 because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1539     calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1540 root 1.55
1541     If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1542     watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1543    
1544 root 1.64
1545 root 1.55 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1546    
1547     AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1548     $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1549     execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1550     make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1551     will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1552     specified in the variable.
1553    
1554     You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1555     before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1556    
1557     BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1558    
1559     use AnyEvent;
1560    
1561 root 1.107 Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1562     be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1563     probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL).
1564    
1565 root 1.64
1566 root 1.2 =head1 SEE ALSO
1567    
1568 root 1.125 Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1569    
1570 root 1.108 Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1571     L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
1572    
1573     Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1574     L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1575     L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1576     L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1577    
1578 root 1.125 Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1579     servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1580    
1581 root 1.122 Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1582    
1583 root 1.108 Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1584 root 1.5
1585 root 1.125 Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1586 root 1.2
1587 root 1.64
1588 root 1.54 =head1 AUTHOR
1589    
1590     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1591     http://home.schmorp.de/
1592 root 1.2
1593     =cut
1594    
1595     1
1596 root 1.1