ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Download File
/cvs/AnyEvent/lib/AnyEvent.pm
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
Log Message:
*** empty log message ***

File Contents

# Content
1 =head1 => NAME
2
3 AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4
5 EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6
7 =head1 SYNOPSIS
8
9 use AnyEvent;
10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub {
12 ...
13 });
14
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 ...
17 });
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
20 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
21 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
22
23 =head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24
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 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
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 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
60 In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
61 model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
62 modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63 follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
64 offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
65 technically possible.
66
67 Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
68 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
71 =head1 DESCRIPTION
72
73 L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
74 allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
75 users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
76 peacefully at any one time).
77
78 The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
79 module.
80
81 During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
82 to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
83 following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
84 L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
85 L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
86 to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
87 adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
88 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
92 Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
93 an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
94 that model the default. For example:
95
96 use Tk;
97 use AnyEvent;
98
99 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
100
101 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 The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
106 C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
107 explicitly.
108
109 =head1 WATCHERS
110
111 AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
112 stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
113 the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
114
115 These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
116 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
124 All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
125
126 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 =head2 I/O WATCHERS
141
142 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
145 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 respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle
149 becomes ready.
150
151 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 The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
156 You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
157 underlying file descriptor.
158
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
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 =head2 TIME WATCHERS
173
174 You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
175 method with the following mandatory arguments:
176
177 C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
178 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
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 undef $w;
198
199 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 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
224 AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
225 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
229 AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
230 AnyEvent API.
231
232 =head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
233
234 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 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 Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
243 invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
244 that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
245 but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
246
247 The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
248 between multiple watchers.
249
250 This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
251 directly will likely not work correctly.
252
253 Example: exit on SIGINT
254
255 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
256
257 =head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
258
259 You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
260
261 The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
262 watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
263 as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
264 signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
265 and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
266 you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
267
268 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
286 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
287 pid => $pid,
288 cb => sub {
289 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
290 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
291 $done->send;
292 },
293 );
294
295 # do something else, then wait for process exit
296 $done->recv;
297
298 =head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
299
300 If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
301 require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
302 will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
303
304 AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
305 will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
306
307 The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
308 because they represent a condition that must become true.
309
310 Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
311 >> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
312 C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
313 becomes true.
314
315 After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
316 by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
317 were a callback).
318
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 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 used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
324 a result.
325
326 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 then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
329 availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
330 called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
331
332 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 could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
335 button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
336
337 Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
338 two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
339 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
343 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 eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
351 for the send to occur.
352
353 Example: wait for a timer.
354
355 # wait till the result is ready
356 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
357
358 # do something such as adding a timer
359 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
360 # when the "result" is ready.
361 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
362 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
363 after => 1,
364 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
365 );
366
367 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
368 # calls send
369 $result_ready->recv;
370
371 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 =head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
379
380 These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
381 code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
382 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
385 =over 4
386
387 =item $cv->send (...)
388
389 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 called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
392
393 If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
394 immediately from within send.
395
396 Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
397 future C<< ->recv >> calls.
398
399 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 =item $cv->croak ($error)
403
404 Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
405 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 These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
415
416 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 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
426 Let's clarify this with the ping example:
427
428 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
429
430 my %result;
431 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
432
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 C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
445 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 C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
454 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 C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
460
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 =over 4
469
470 =item $cv->recv
471
472 Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
473 >> methods have been called on c<$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
482 In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
483 in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
484
485 Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
486 (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 caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
489 condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
490 callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
491 while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
492
493 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 multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
496 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 C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
502 coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
503
504 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 time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
507 waits otherwise.
508
509 =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 C<send> or C<croak> are called. Calling C<recv> inside the callback
521 or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
522
523 =back
524
525 =head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
526
527 =over 4
528
529 =item $AnyEvent::MODEL
530
531 Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
532 contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
533 Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
534 C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
535 AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
536
537 The known classes so far are:
538
539 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
540 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
541 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
542 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
543 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
544 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
545 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
546 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
547
548 There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
549 watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
550 POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
551 second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
552 AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
553 it's adaptor.
554
555 AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
556 autodetecting them.
557
558 =item AnyEvent::detect
559
560 Returns C<$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
565 =item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
566
567 Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
568 autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
569
570 If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
571 that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
572 L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
573
574 =item @AnyEvent::post_detect
575
576 If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
577 before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
578 the event loop has been chosen.
579
580 You should check C<$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 Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
585
586 =back
587
588 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
589
590 As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
591 freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
592
593 Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
594 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 Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
599 the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
600 because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
601 events is to stay interactive.
602
603 It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
604 requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
605 called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
606 freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
607
608 =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 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
617 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
625 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
646 =head1 OTHER MODULES
647
648 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
662 Provide read and write buffers and manages watchers for reads and writes.
663
664 =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 =item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
671
672 Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
673
674 =item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
675
676 Provides a simple web application server framework.
677
678 =item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
679
680 The fastest ping in the west.
681
682 =item L<Net::IRC3>
683
684 AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
685
686 =item L<Net::XMPP2>
687
688 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 Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
702
703 =item L<AnyEvent::AIO>, L<IO::AIO>
704
705 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
709 =item L<AnyEvent::BDB>, L<BDB>
710
711 Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
712 IO::AIO and AnyEvent together.
713
714 =item L<IO::Lambda>
715
716 The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
717
718 =back
719
720 =cut
721
722 package AnyEvent;
723
724 no warnings;
725 use strict;
726
727 use Carp;
728
729 our $VERSION = '4.03';
730 our $MODEL;
731
732 our $AUTOLOAD;
733 our @ISA;
734
735 our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
736
737 our @REGISTRY;
738
739 our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2)
740
741 {
742 my $idx;
743 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
744 for split /\s*,\s*/, $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
745 }
746
747 my @models = (
748 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
749 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
750 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
751 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
752 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
753 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
754 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
755 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
756 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
757 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
758 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
759 );
760
761 our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
762
763 our @post_detect;
764
765 sub post_detect(&) {
766 my ($cb) = @_;
767
768 if ($MODEL) {
769 $cb->();
770
771 1
772 } else {
773 push @post_detect, $cb;
774
775 defined wantarray
776 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
777 : ()
778 }
779 }
780
781 sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
782 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
783 }
784
785 sub detect() {
786 unless ($MODEL) {
787 no strict 'refs';
788
789 if ($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 $verbose > 1;
794 } else {
795 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
796 }
797 }
798
799 # check for already loaded models
800 unless ($MODEL) {
801 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
802 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
803 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
804 if (eval "require $model") {
805 $MODEL = $model;
806 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
807 last;
808 }
809 }
810 }
811
812 unless ($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 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
828 }
829 }
830
831 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
832 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
833
834 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
835 }
836
837 $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
848 my $class = shift;
849 $class->$func (@_);
850 }
851
852 package AnyEvent::Base;
853
854 # default implementation for ->condvar
855
856 sub condvar {
857 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
858 }
859
860 # default implementation for ->signal
861
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 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
871 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
872 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
873 };
874
875 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
876 }
877
878 sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
879 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
880
881 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
882
883 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
884 }
885
886 # default implementation for ->child
887
888 our %PID_CB;
889 our $CHLD_W;
890 our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
891 our $PID_IDLE;
892 our $WNOHANG;
893
894 sub _child_wait {
895 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
896 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
897 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
898 }
899
900 undef $PID_IDLE;
901 }
902
903 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 sub child {
912 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
913
914 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
915 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
916
917 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
918
919 unless ($WNOHANG) {
920 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
921 }
922
923 unless ($CHLD_W) {
924 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
925 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
926 &_sigchld;
927 }
928
929 bless [$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 package AnyEvent::CondVar;
942
943 our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
944
945 package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
946
947 use overload
948 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
949 fallback => 1;
950
951 sub _send {
952 # nop
953 }
954
955 sub send {
956 my $cv = shift;
957 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
958 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
959 $cv->_send;
960 }
961
962 sub croak {
963 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
964 $_[0]->send;
965 }
966
967 sub ready {
968 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
969 }
970
971 sub _wait {
972 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
973 }
974
975 sub recv {
976 $_[0]->_wait;
977
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 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
995 }
996
997 # undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
998 *broadcast = \&send;
999 *wait = \&_wait;
1000
1001 =head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1002
1003 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 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 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
1010 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 AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
1013
1014 Example:
1015
1016 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1017
1018 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1019 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 I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1038
1039 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 not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1043
1044 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1045
1046 The following environment variables are used by this module:
1047
1048 =over 4
1049
1050 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1051
1052 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 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 auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1067 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 auto detection and -probing.
1071
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 =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 of auto probing).
1084
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 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 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 addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1098 IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1099
1100 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1101
1102 Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1103 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 =back
1111
1112 =head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1113
1114 The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1115 to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1116 program when the user enters quit:
1117
1118 use AnyEvent;
1119
1120 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1121
1122 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 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1130 },
1131 );
1132
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 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1145
1146 =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 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1185 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 result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
1205
1206 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1207
1208 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1209 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1210 $txn->{finished}->send;
1211 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1212 }
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 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1219 return $txn->{result};
1220
1221 The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1222 that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1223 whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1224 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 2. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1235
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 3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1244
1245 use EV;
1246
1247 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1248 my $txn = shift;
1249 my $data = $txn->result;
1250 ...
1251 });
1252
1253 EV::loop;
1254
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 $quit->send;
1264 });
1265
1266 $quit->recv;
1267
1268
1269 =head1 BENCHMARKS
1270
1271 To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1272 over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1273 of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1274
1275 =head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1276
1277 Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1278 through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1279 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
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 invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1306 signal the end of this phase.
1307
1308 I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1309 watcher.
1310
1311 =head3 Results
1312
1313 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1314 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1315 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 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1320 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
1325 =head3 Discussion
1326
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 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
1334 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 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 C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1345 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
1349 The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1350 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
1356 The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1357 cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1358
1359 C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1360 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
1367 The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1368 more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1369 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 hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1373 above).
1374
1375 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 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 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
1392 =head3 Summary
1393
1394 =over 4
1395
1396 =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
1400 =item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1401 the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1402 adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1403
1404 =item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1405 reasonable memory usage.
1406
1407 =back
1408
1409 =head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1410
1411 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 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 fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1420 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 In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1424 (1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1425 connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1426
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 each server has a read and write socket end).
1434
1435 I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1436 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 it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1441 a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1442
1443 =head3 Results
1444
1445 name sockets create request
1446 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1447 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1448 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 =item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1480
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 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1503 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 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
1516 EV is again fastest.
1517
1518 Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1519 loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1520 matter.
1521
1522 POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1523 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
1535 =head1 FORK
1536
1537 Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1538 because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1539 calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1540
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
1545 =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 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
1566 =head1 SEE ALSO
1567
1568 Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1569
1570 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 Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1579 servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1580
1581 Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1582
1583 Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1584
1585 Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1586
1587
1588 =head1 AUTHOR
1589
1590 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1591 http://home.schmorp.de/
1592
1593 =cut
1594
1595 1
1596