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Revision 1.166 by root, Tue Jul 8 23:10:20 2008 UTC

1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops 3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4 4
5Event, Coro, Glib, Tk - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6 6
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 7=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 8
9 use AnyEvent; 9 use AnyEvent;
10 10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => ..., poll => "[rw]+", cb => sub { 11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub {
12 my ($poll_got) = @_;
13 ... 12 ...
14 }); 13 });
15
16* only one io watcher per $fh and $poll type is allowed (i.e. on a socket
17you can have one r + one w or one rw watcher, not any more (limitation by
18Tk).
19
20* the C<$poll_got> passed to the handler needs to be checked by looking
21for single characters (e.g. with a regex), as it can contain more event
22types than were requested (e.g. a 'w' watcher might generate 'rw' events,
23limitation by Glib).
24
25* AnyEvent will keep filehandles alive, so as long as the watcher exists,
26the filehandle exists.
27 14
28 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { 15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
29 ... 16 ...
30 }); 17 });
31 18
32* io and time watchers get canceled whenever $w is destroyed, so keep a copy 19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
33 20 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
34* timers can only be used once and must be recreated for repeated
35operation (limitation by Glib and Tk).
36
37 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # kind of main loop replacement
38 $w->wait; # enters main loop till $condvar gets ->broadcast 21 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
39 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's
40 22
41* condvars are used to give blocking behaviour when neccessary. Create 23=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
42a condvar for any "request" or "event" your module might create, C<< 24
43->broadcast >> it when the event happens and provide a function that calls 25This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
44C<< ->wait >> for it. See the examples below. 26in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
27L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
28
29=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
30
31Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
32nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
33
34Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
35policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
36
37First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
38interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use in a
39pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
40the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
41only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
42helps hiding the differences between those event loops.
43
44The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
45programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
46religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
47module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
48model you use.
49
50For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
51actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
52like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
53cannot use anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that
54isn't itself. What's worse, all the potential users of your module are
55I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
56
57AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
58fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
59with the rest: POE + IO::Async? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if
60your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
61too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
62event models it supports (including stuff like POE and IO::Async, as long
63as those use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new
64event loops to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
65
66In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
67model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
68modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
69follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
70offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
71technically possible.
72
73Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
74of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
75non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
76such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
77platform bugs and differences.
78
79Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
80useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
81model, you should I<not> use this module.
45 82
46=head1 DESCRIPTION 83=head1 DESCRIPTION
47 84
48L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 85L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
49allows module authors to utilizy an event loop without forcing module 86allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
50users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist 87users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
51peacefully at any one time). 88peacefully at any one time).
52 89
53The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 90The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
54module. 91module.
55 92
56On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 93During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
57loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 94to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
58loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 95following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
59used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 96L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
60order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 97L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
61used. If still none could be found, it will issue an error. 98to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
99adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
100be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
101found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
102very efficient, but should work everywhere.
103
104Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
105an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
106that model the default. For example:
107
108 use Tk;
109 use AnyEvent;
110
111 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
112
113The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
114starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
115use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
116
117The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
118C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
119explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
120
121=head1 WATCHERS
122
123AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
124stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
125the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
126
127These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
128creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
129callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
130is in control).
131
132To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
133variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
134to it).
135
136All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
137
138Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
139example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
140
141An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
142
143 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
144 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
145 undef $w;
146 });
147
148Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
149my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
150declared.
151
152=head2 I/O WATCHERS
153
154You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
155with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
156
157C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch for events
158(AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file handle). C<poll>
159must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a watcher
160waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively. C<cb> is the
161callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
162
163Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
164presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
165callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
166
167The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
168You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
169underlying file descriptor.
170
171Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
172always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
173handles.
174
175Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
176watcher.
177
178 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
179 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
180 warn "read: $input\n";
181 undef $w;
182 });
183
184=head2 TIME WATCHERS
185
186You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
187method with the following mandatory arguments:
188
189C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
190supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
191in that case.
192
193Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
194presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
195callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
196
197The callback will normally be invoked once only. If you specify another
198parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
199callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
200seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
201false value, then it is treated as if it were missing.
202
203The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
204attempt is done to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
205only approximate.
206
207Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
208
209 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
210 warn "timeout\n";
211 });
212
213 # to cancel the timer:
214 undef $w;
215
216Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
217
218 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
219 warn "timeout\n";
220 };
221
222=head3 TIMING ISSUES
223
224There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
225in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
226o'clock").
227
228While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
229use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
230"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
231the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
232fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
233
234AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
235about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
236on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
237timers.
238
239AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
240AnyEvent API.
241
242AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
62 243
63=over 4 244=over 4
64 245
246=item AnyEvent->time
247
248This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
249seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
250return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
251
252It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
253will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
254
255=item AnyEvent->now
256
257This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
258this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
259the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
260time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
261
262I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
263function to call when you want to know the current time.>
264
265This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
266thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
267L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update it's activity timeouts).
268
269The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
270with your timing, you can skip it without bad conscience.
271
272For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
273and L<EV> and the following set-up:
274
275The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callback at
276time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
277you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
278second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
279after three seconds.
280
281With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
282both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
283be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
284
285With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
286time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
287last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
288to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
289
290In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
291regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
292callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
293higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
294
295In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
296the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
297
298In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
299can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
300difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
301account.
302
303=back
304
305=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
306
307You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
308I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to
309be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
310
311Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
312presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
313callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
314
315Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
316invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
317that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
318but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
319
320The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
321between multiple watchers.
322
323This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
324directly will likely not work correctly.
325
326Example: exit on SIGINT
327
328 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
329
330=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
331
332You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
333
334The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
335watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
336as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
337signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
338and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
339you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
340
341There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
342I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
343have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
344
345Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
346event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
347loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
348
349This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
350AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
351C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
352
353Example: fork a process and wait for it
354
355 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
356
357 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
358
359 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
360 pid => $pid,
361 cb => sub {
362 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
363 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
364 $done->send;
365 },
366 );
367
368 # do something else, then wait for process exit
369 $done->recv;
370
371=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
372
373If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
374require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
375will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
376
377AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
378will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
379
380The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
381because they represent a condition that must become true.
382
383Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
384>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
385C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
386becomes true.
387
388After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
389by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
390were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
391->send >> method).
392
393Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
394optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
395in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
396another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
397used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
398a result.
399
400Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
401for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
402then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
403availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
404called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
405
406You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
407you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
408could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
409button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
410
411Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
412two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
413lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
414you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
415as this asks for trouble.
416
417Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
418used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
419easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
420AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
421it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
422
423There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
424eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
425for the send to occur.
426
427Example: wait for a timer.
428
429 # wait till the result is ready
430 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
431
432 # do something such as adding a timer
433 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
434 # when the "result" is ready.
435 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
436 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
437 after => 1,
438 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
439 );
440
441 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
442 # calls send
443 $result_ready->recv;
444
445Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that
446condition variables are also code references.
447
448 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
449 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
450 $done->recv;
451
452=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
453
454These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
455code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
456the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
457uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
458
459=over 4
460
461=item $cv->send (...)
462
463Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
464calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
465called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
466
467If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
468immediately from within send.
469
470Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
471future C<< ->recv >> calls.
472
473Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly
474(as a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
475C<send>. Note, however, that many C-based event loops do not handle
476overloading, so as tempting as it may be, passing a condition variable
477instead of a callback does not work. Both the pure perl and EV loops
478support overloading, however, as well as all functions that use perl to
479invoke a callback (as in L<AnyEvent::Socket> and L<AnyEvent::DNS> for
480example).
481
482=item $cv->croak ($error)
483
484Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
485C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
486
487This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
488user/consumer.
489
490=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
491
492=item $cv->end
493
494These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
495
496These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
497one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
498to use a condition variable for the whole process.
499
500Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
501C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
502>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
503is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
504callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
505
506Let's clarify this with the ping example:
507
508 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
509
510 my %result;
511 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
512
513 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
514 $cv->begin;
515 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
516 $result{$host} = ...;
517 $cv->end;
518 };
519 }
520
521 $cv->end;
522
523This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
524C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
525order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
526each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
527it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
528results arrive is not relevant.
529
530There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
531loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
532to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
533C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
534doesn't execute once).
535
536This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
537use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
538is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
539C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
540
541=back
542
543=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
544
545These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
546code awaits the condition.
547
548=over 4
549
550=item $cv->recv
551
552Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
553>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
554normally.
555
556You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
557will return immediately.
558
559If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
560function will call C<croak>.
561
562In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
563in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
564
565Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
566(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
567using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
568caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
569condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
570callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
571while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
572
573Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
574sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
575multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
576can supply.
577
578The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
579fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
580versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
581C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
582coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
583
584You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
585only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
586time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
587waits otherwise.
588
589=item $bool = $cv->ready
590
591Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
592C<croak> have been called.
593
594=item $cb = $cv->cb ([new callback])
595
596This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
597replaces it before doing so.
598
599The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
600C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the condition
601variable itself. Calling C<recv> inside the callback or at any later time
602is guaranteed not to block.
603
604=back
605
606=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
607
608=over 4
609
610=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
611
612Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
613contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
614Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
615C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
616AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
617
618The known classes so far are:
619
620 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
621 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
622 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
623 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
624 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
625 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
626 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
627 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
628
629There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
630watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
631POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
632second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
633AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
634it's adaptor.
635
636AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
637autodetecting them.
638
639=item AnyEvent::detect
640
641Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
642if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
643have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
644runtime.
645
646=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
647
648Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
649autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
650
651If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
652that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
653L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
654
655=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
656
657If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
658before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
659the event loop has been chosen.
660
661You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
662if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
663and the array will be ignored.
664
665Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
666
667=back
668
669=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
670
671As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
672freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
673
674Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
675decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
676by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
677to load the event module first.
678
679Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
680the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
681because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
682events is to stay interactive.
683
684It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
685requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
686called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
687freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
688
689=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
690
691There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
692dictate which event model to use.
693
694If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
695do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
696decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
697
698If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
699Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
700event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
701speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
702modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
703decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
704might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
705
706You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
707C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
708everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
709
710=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
711
712Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
713only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
714
715In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
716
717 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
718
719This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
720
721Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
722it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
723variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
724exit cleanly.
725
726
727=head1 OTHER MODULES
728
729The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
730AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
731in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
732available via CPAN.
733
734=over 4
735
736=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
737
738Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
739functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
740
741=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
742
743Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
744addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
745connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
746
747=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
748
749Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
750supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
751non-blocking SSL/TLS.
752
753=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
754
755Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
756
757=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
758
759A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
760HTTP requests.
761
762=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
763
764Provides a simple web application server framework.
765
766=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
767
768The fastest ping in the west.
769
770=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
771
772Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
773
774=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
775
776Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
777programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
778together.
779
780=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
781
782Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
783L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
784
785=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
786
787A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
788
789=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
790
791A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
792L<App::IGS>).
793
794=item L<Net::IRC3>
795
796AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
797
798=item L<Net::XMPP2>
799
800AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
801
802=item L<Net::FCP>
803
804AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
805of AnyEvent.
806
807=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
808
809High level API for event-based execution flow control.
810
811=item L<Coro>
812
813Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
814
815=item L<IO::Lambda>
816
817The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
818
819=back
820
65=cut 821=cut
66 822
67package AnyEvent; 823package AnyEvent;
68 824
69no warnings; 825no warnings;
70use strict 'vars'; 826use strict;
827
71use Carp; 828use Carp;
72 829
73our $VERSION = '0.4'; 830our $VERSION = 4.2;
74our $MODEL; 831our $MODEL;
75 832
76our $AUTOLOAD; 833our $AUTOLOAD;
77our @ISA; 834our @ISA;
78 835
836our @REGISTRY;
837
838our $WIN32;
839
840BEGIN {
841 my $win32 = ! ! ($^O =~ /mswin32/i);
842 eval "sub WIN32(){ $win32 }";
843}
844
79our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1; 845our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
80 846
847our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
848
849{
850 my $idx;
851 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
852 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
853 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
854}
855
81my @models = ( 856my @models = (
82 [Coro => Coro::Event::], 857 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
83 [Event => Event::], 858 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
84 [Glib => Glib::], 859 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
85 [Tk => Tk::], 860 # everything below here will not be autoprobed
861 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
862 # and is usually faster
863 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
864 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
865 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
866 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
867 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
868 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
869 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
86); 870);
87 871
88our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait cancel DESTROY); 872our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer time now signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
89 873
90sub AUTOLOAD { 874our @post_detect;
91 $AUTOLOAD =~ s/.*://;
92 875
93 $method{$AUTOLOAD} 876sub post_detect(&) {
94 or croak "$AUTOLOAD: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects"; 877 my ($cb) = @_;
95 878
879 if ($MODEL) {
880 $cb->();
881
882 1
883 } else {
884 push @post_detect, $cb;
885
886 defined wantarray
887 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
888 : ()
889 }
890}
891
892sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
893 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
894}
895
896sub detect() {
96 unless ($MODEL) { 897 unless ($MODEL) {
97 # check for already loaded models 898 no strict 'refs';
98 for (@models) { 899 local $SIG{__DIE__};
99 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 900
100 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 901 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
101 eval "require AnyEvent::Impl::$model"; 902 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
102 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $MODEL && $verbose > 1; 903 if (eval "require $model") {
103 last if $MODEL; 904 $MODEL = $model;
905 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
906 } else {
907 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
104 } 908 }
105 } 909 }
106 910
911 # check for already loaded models
107 unless ($MODEL) { 912 unless ($MODEL) {
108 # try to load a model
109
110 for (@models) { 913 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
111 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 914 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
112 eval "require AnyEvent::Impl::$model"; 915 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
916 if (eval "require $model") {
917 $MODEL = $model;
113 warn "AnyEvent: autprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $MODEL && $verbose > 1; 918 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
114 last if $MODEL; 919 last;
920 }
921 }
115 } 922 }
116 923
924 unless ($MODEL) {
925 # try to load a model
926
927 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
928 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
929 if (eval "require $package"
930 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
931 and eval "require $model") {
932 $MODEL = $model;
933 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
934 last;
935 }
936 }
937
117 $MODEL 938 $MODEL
118 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Coro, Event, Glib or Tk."; 939 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
940 }
119 } 941 }
942
943 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
944 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
945
946 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
120 } 947 }
121 948
122 @ISA = $MODEL; 949 $MODEL
950}
951
952sub AUTOLOAD {
953 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
954
955 $method{$func}
956 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
957
958 detect unless $MODEL;
123 959
124 my $class = shift; 960 my $class = shift;
125 $class->$AUTOLOAD (@_); 961 $class->$func (@_);
126} 962}
963
964package AnyEvent::Base;
965
966# default implementation for now and time
967
968use Time::HiRes ();
969
970sub time { Time::HiRes::time }
971sub now { Time::HiRes::time }
972
973# default implementation for ->condvar
974
975sub condvar {
976 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
977}
978
979# default implementation for ->signal
980
981our %SIG_CB;
982
983sub signal {
984 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
985
986 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
987 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
988
989 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
990 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
991 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
992 };
993
994 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
995}
996
997sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
998 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
999
1000 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1001
1002 delete $SIG{$signal} unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1003}
1004
1005# default implementation for ->child
1006
1007our %PID_CB;
1008our $CHLD_W;
1009our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1010our $PID_IDLE;
1011our $WNOHANG;
1012
1013sub _child_wait {
1014 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
1015 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
1016 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
1017 }
1018
1019 undef $PID_IDLE;
1020}
1021
1022sub _sigchld {
1023 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
1024 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
1025 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1026 &_child_wait;
1027 });
1028}
1029
1030sub child {
1031 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1032
1033 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
1034 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
1035
1036 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1037
1038 unless ($WNOHANG) {
1039 $WNOHANG = eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
1040 }
1041
1042 unless ($CHLD_W) {
1043 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
1044 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1045 &_sigchld;
1046 }
1047
1048 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
1049}
1050
1051sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
1052 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1053
1054 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
1055 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
1056
1057 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1058}
1059
1060package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1061
1062our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1063
1064package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1065
1066use overload
1067 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1068 fallback => 1;
1069
1070sub _send {
1071 # nop
1072}
1073
1074sub send {
1075 my $cv = shift;
1076 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1077 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1078 $cv->_send;
1079}
1080
1081sub croak {
1082 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1083 $_[0]->send;
1084}
1085
1086sub ready {
1087 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1088}
1089
1090sub _wait {
1091 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1092}
1093
1094sub recv {
1095 $_[0]->_wait;
1096
1097 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1098 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1099}
1100
1101sub cb {
1102 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1103 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
1104}
1105
1106sub begin {
1107 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1108 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1109}
1110
1111sub end {
1112 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1113 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1114}
1115
1116# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1117*broadcast = \&send;
1118*wait = \&_wait;
1119
1120=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1121
1122This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1123a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1124provide AnyEvent compatibility.
1125
1126If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
1127supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
1128pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
1129the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
1130C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
1131AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
1132
1133Example:
1134
1135 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1136
1137This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1138package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1139
1140When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1141will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1142C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1143
1144The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1145L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1146and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1147see the sources.
1148
1149If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1150provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1151
1152The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1153terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1154in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1155inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1156I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1157
1158I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1159condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1160C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1161not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1162
1163=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1164
1165The following environment variables are used by this module:
1166
1167=over 4
1168
1169=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1170
1171By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1172conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1173talkative.
1174
1175When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1176conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1177C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1178
1179When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1180model it chooses.
1181
1182=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1183
1184This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1185auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1186entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1187and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1188used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1189auto detection and -probing.
1190
1191This functionality might change in future versions.
1192
1193For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1194could start your program like this:
1195
1196 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1197
1198=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1199
1200Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1201for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1202of auto probing).
1203
1204Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1205current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1206used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1207list.
1208
1209This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1210against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1211small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1212
1213Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1214but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1215- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1216addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1217IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1218
1219=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1220
1221Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1222for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1223some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1224default.
1225
1226Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1227EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1228
1229=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1230
1231The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1232will create in parallel.
127 1233
128=back 1234=back
129 1235
130=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
131
132The following environment variables are used by this module:
133
134C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, reports which event
135model gets used.
136
137=head1 EXAMPLE 1236=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
138 1237
139The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 1238The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
140to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 1239to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
141when the user enters quit: 1240program when the user enters quit:
142 1241
143 use AnyEvent; 1242 use AnyEvent;
144 1243
145 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 1244 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
146 1245
147 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 1246 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1247 fh => \*STDIN,
1248 poll => 'r',
1249 cb => sub {
148 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1250 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
149 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1251 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
150 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1252 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
151 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1253 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1254 },
152 }); 1255 );
153 1256
154 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once 1257 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
155 1258
156 sub new_timer { 1259 sub new_timer {
157 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 1260 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
160 }); 1263 });
161 } 1264 }
162 1265
163 new_timer; # create first timer 1266 new_timer; # create first timer
164 1267
165 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1268 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
166 1269
167=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 1270=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
168 1271
169Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 1272Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
170API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 1273API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
220 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 1323 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
221 or die "connection or write error"; 1324 or die "connection or write error";
222 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 1325 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
223 1326
224Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 1327Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
225result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 1328result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
226 1329
227 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 1330 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
228 1331
229 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 1332 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
230 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 1333 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
231 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 1334 $txn->{finished}->send;
232 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 1335 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
233 } 1336 }
234 1337
235The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 1338The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
236request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 1339request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
237data: 1340data:
238 1341
239 $txn->{finished}->wait; 1342 $txn->{finished}->recv;
240 return $txn->{result}; 1343 return $txn->{result};
241 1344
242The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 1345The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
243that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 1346that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
244wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 1347whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
245and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 1348and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
246problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 1349problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
247random callback. 1350random callback.
248 1351
249All of this enables the following usage styles: 1352All of this enables the following usage styles:
250 1353
2511. Blocking: 13541. Blocking:
252 1355
253 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); 1356 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
254 1357
2552. Blocking, but parallelizing: 13582. Blocking, but running in parallel:
256 1359
257 my @datas = map $_->result, 1360 my @datas = map $_->result,
258 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_), 1361 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
259 @urls; 1362 @urls;
260 1363
261Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know 1364Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
262anything about events. 1365anything about events.
263 1366
2643a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module: 13673a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
265 1368
266 use Event; 1369 use EV;
267 1370
268 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1371 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
269 my $txn = shift; 1372 my $txn = shift;
270 my $data = $txn->result; 1373 my $data = $txn->result;
271 ... 1374 ...
272 }); 1375 });
273 1376
274 Event::loop; 1377 EV::loop;
275 1378
2763b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too: 13793b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
277 1380
278 use AnyEvent; 1381 use AnyEvent;
279 1382
280 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 1383 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
281 1384
282 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1385 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
283 ... 1386 ...
284 $quit->broadcast; 1387 $quit->send;
285 }); 1388 });
286 1389
287 $quit->wait; 1390 $quit->recv;
1391
1392
1393=head1 BENCHMARKS
1394
1395To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1396over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1397of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1398
1399=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1400
1401Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1402through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1403timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1404which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1405
1406Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1407distribution.
1408
1409=head3 Explanation of the columns
1410
1411I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1412different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1413loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1414and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1415would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1416of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1417
1418I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1419RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1420and Perl-based overheads.
1421
1422I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1423takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1424all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1425and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1426
1427I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1428callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1429invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1430signal the end of this phase.
1431
1432I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1433watcher.
1434
1435=head3 Results
1436
1437 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1438 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1439 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1440 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1441 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1442 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1443 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1444 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1445 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1446 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1447 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1448
1449=head3 Discussion
1450
1451The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1452well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1453can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1454file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1455the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1456boost.
1457
1458Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1459overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1460the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1461higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1462
1463To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1464benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1465EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1466cycles with POE.
1467
1468C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1469maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1470far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1471natively.
1472
1473The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1474constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1475interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1476adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1477performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1478them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1479
1480The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1481cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1482
1483C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1484faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1485C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1486watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1487making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1488(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1489inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1490
1491The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1492more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1493precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1494file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1495employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1496hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1497above).
1498
1499C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1500select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1501be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1502memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1503as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1504requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1505invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1506implementation.
1507
1508The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1509for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1510small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1511optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1512using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1513memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1514design).
1515
1516=head3 Summary
1517
1518=over 4
1519
1520=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1521(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1522performance with or without AnyEvent.
1523
1524=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1525the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1526adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1527
1528=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1529reasonable memory usage.
1530
1531=back
1532
1533=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1534
1535This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1536creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1537timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1538watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1539watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1540
1541The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1542are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1543fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1544timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1545most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1546
1547In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1548(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1549connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1550
1551Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1552distribution.
1553
1554=head3 Explanation of the columns
1555
1556I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1557each server has a read and write socket end).
1558
1559I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1560nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1561
1562I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1563single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1564it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1565a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1566
1567=head3 Results
1568
1569 name sockets create request
1570 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1571 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1572 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1573 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1574 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1575
1576=head3 Discussion
1577
1578This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1579particular event loop.
1580
1581EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1582is relatively high, though.
1583
1584Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1585loops Event and Glib.
1586
1587Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1588understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1589the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1590uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1591
1592Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1593clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1594
1595POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1596as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1597it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1598
1599=head3 Summary
1600
1601=over 4
1602
1603=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1604
1605=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1606
1607=back
1608
1609=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1610
1611While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1612large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1613I/O watchers.
1614
1615In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1616case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1617one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1618well.
1619
1620The columns are identical to the previous table.
1621
1622=head3 Results
1623
1624 name sockets create request
1625 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1626 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1627 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1628 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1629 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1630
1631=head3 Discussion
1632
1633The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1634server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1635in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1636to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1637speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1638them).
1639
1640EV is again fastest.
1641
1642Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1643loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1644matter.
1645
1646POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1647others.
1648
1649=head3 Summary
1650
1651=over 4
1652
1653=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1654watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1655
1656=back
1657
1658
1659=head1 FORK
1660
1661Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1662because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1663calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1664
1665If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1666watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1667
1668
1669=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1670
1671AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1672$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1673execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1674make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1675will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1676specified in the variable.
1677
1678You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1679before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1680
1681 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1682
1683 use AnyEvent;
1684
1685Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1686be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1687probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL).
1688
1689
1690=head1 BUGS
1691
1692Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
1693to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
1694and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
1695mamleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
1696pronounced).
1697
288 1698
289=head1 SEE ALSO 1699=head1 SEE ALSO
290 1700
291Event modules: L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>. 1701Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
292 1702
293Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 1703Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1704L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
294 1705
295Nontrivial usage example: L<Net::FCP>. 1706Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1707L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1708L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1709L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
296 1710
297=head1 1711Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1712servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1713
1714Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1715
1716Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1717
1718Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1719
1720
1721=head1 AUTHOR
1722
1723 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1724 http://home.schmorp.de/
298 1725
299=cut 1726=cut
300 1727
3011 17281
302 1729

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