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Revision 1.167 by root, Tue Jul 8 23:44:51 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> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
309callback to be 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 $MODEL
118 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Coro, Event, Glib or Tk."; 939 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
940 }
119 } 941 }
942
943 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
944
945 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT}) {
946 unshift @AnyEvent::Base::Strict::ISA, $MODEL;
947 unshift @ISA, AnyEvent::Base::Strict::
948 } else {
949 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
950 }
951
952 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
120 } 953 }
121 954
122 @ISA = $MODEL; 955 $MODEL
956}
957
958sub AUTOLOAD {
959 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
960
961 $method{$func}
962 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
963
964 detect unless $MODEL;
123 965
124 my $class = shift; 966 my $class = shift;
125 $class->$AUTOLOAD (@_); 967 $class->$func (@_);
126} 968}
969
970package AnyEvent::Base;
971
972# default implementation for now and time
973
974use Time::HiRes ();
975
976sub time { Time::HiRes::time }
977sub now { Time::HiRes::time }
978
979# default implementation for ->condvar
980
981sub condvar {
982 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
983}
984
985# default implementation for ->signal
986
987our %SIG_CB;
988
989sub signal {
990 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
991
992 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
993 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
994
995 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
996 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
997 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
998 };
999
1000 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
1001}
1002
1003sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
1004 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1005
1006 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1007
1008 delete $SIG{$signal} unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1009}
1010
1011# default implementation for ->child
1012
1013our %PID_CB;
1014our $CHLD_W;
1015our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1016our $PID_IDLE;
1017our $WNOHANG;
1018
1019sub _child_wait {
1020 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
1021 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
1022 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
1023 }
1024
1025 undef $PID_IDLE;
1026}
1027
1028sub _sigchld {
1029 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
1030 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
1031 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1032 &_child_wait;
1033 });
1034}
1035
1036sub child {
1037 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1038
1039 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
1040 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
1041
1042 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1043
1044 unless ($WNOHANG) {
1045 $WNOHANG = eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
1046 }
1047
1048 unless ($CHLD_W) {
1049 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
1050 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1051 &_sigchld;
1052 }
1053
1054 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
1055}
1056
1057sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
1058 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1059
1060 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
1061 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
1062
1063 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1064}
1065
1066package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1067
1068our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1069
1070package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1071
1072use overload
1073 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1074 fallback => 1;
1075
1076sub _send {
1077 # nop
1078}
1079
1080sub send {
1081 my $cv = shift;
1082 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1083 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1084 $cv->_send;
1085}
1086
1087sub croak {
1088 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1089 $_[0]->send;
1090}
1091
1092sub ready {
1093 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1094}
1095
1096sub _wait {
1097 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1098}
1099
1100sub recv {
1101 $_[0]->_wait;
1102
1103 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1104 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1105}
1106
1107sub cb {
1108 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1109 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
1110}
1111
1112sub begin {
1113 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1114 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1115}
1116
1117sub end {
1118 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1119 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1120}
1121
1122# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1123*broadcast = \&send;
1124*wait = \&_wait;
1125
1126package AnyEvent::Base::Strict;
1127
1128use Carp qw(croak);
1129
1130# supply checks for argument validity for many functions
1131
1132sub io {
1133 my $class = shift;
1134 my %arg = @_;
1135
1136 ref $arg{cb}
1137 or croak "AnyEvent->io called with illegal cb argument '$arg{cb}'";
1138 delete $arg{cb};
1139
1140 fileno $arg{fh}
1141 or croak "AnyEvent->io called with illegal fh argument '$arg{fh}'";
1142 delete $arg{fh};
1143
1144 $arg{poll} =~ /^[rw]$/
1145 or croak "AnyEvent->io called with illegal poll argument '$arg{poll}'";
1146 delete $arg{poll};
1147
1148 croak "AnyEvent->io called with unsupported parameter(s) " . join ", ", keys %arg
1149 if keys %arg;
1150
1151 $class->SUPER::io (@_)
1152}
1153
1154sub timer {
1155 my $class = shift;
1156 my %arg = @_;
1157
1158 ref $arg{cb}
1159 or croak "AnyEvent->timer called with illegal cb argument '$arg{cb}'";
1160 delete $arg{cb};
1161
1162 exists $arg{after}
1163 or croak "AnyEvent->timer called without mandatory 'after' parameter";
1164 delete $arg{after};
1165
1166 $arg{interval} > 0 || !$arg{interval}
1167 or croak "AnyEvent->timer called with illegal interval argument '$arg{interval}'";
1168 delete $arg{interval};
1169
1170 croak "AnyEvent->timer called with unsupported parameter(s) " . join ", ", keys %arg
1171 if keys %arg;
1172
1173 $class->SUPER::timer (@_)
1174}
1175
1176sub signal {
1177 my $class = shift;
1178 my %arg = @_;
1179
1180 ref $arg{cb}
1181 or croak "AnyEvent->signal called with illegal cb argument '$arg{cb}'";
1182 delete $arg{cb};
1183
1184 eval "require POSIX; defined &POSIX::SIG$arg{signal}"
1185 or croak "AnyEvent->signal called with illegal signal name '$arg{signal}'";
1186 delete $arg{signal};
1187
1188 croak "AnyEvent->signal called with unsupported parameter(s) " . join ", ", keys %arg
1189 if keys %arg;
1190
1191 $class->SUPER::signal (@_)
1192}
1193
1194sub child {
1195 my $class = shift;
1196 my %arg = @_;
1197
1198 ref $arg{cb}
1199 or croak "AnyEvent->signal called with illegal cb argument '$arg{cb}'";
1200 delete $arg{cb};
1201
1202 $arg{pid} =~ /^-?\d+$/
1203 or croak "AnyEvent->signal called with illegal pid value '$arg{pid}'";
1204 delete $arg{pid};
1205
1206 croak "AnyEvent->signal called with unsupported parameter(s) " . join ", ", keys %arg
1207 if keys %arg;
1208
1209 $class->SUPER::child (@_)
1210}
1211
1212sub condvar {
1213 my $class = shift;
1214 my %arg = @_;
1215
1216 !exists $arg{cb} or ref $arg{cb}
1217 or croak "AnyEvent->condvar called with illegal cb argument '$arg{cb}'";
1218 delete $arg{cb};
1219
1220 croak "AnyEvent->condvar called with unsupported parameter(s) " . join ", ", keys %arg
1221 if keys %arg;
1222
1223 $class->SUPER::condvar (@_)
1224}
1225
1226sub time {
1227 my $class = shift;
1228
1229 @_
1230 and croak "AnyEvent->time wrongly called with paramaters";
1231
1232 $class->SUPER::time (@_)
1233}
1234
1235sub now {
1236 my $class = shift;
1237
1238 @_
1239 and croak "AnyEvent->now wrongly called with paramaters";
1240
1241 $class->SUPER::now (@_)
1242}
1243
1244=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1245
1246This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1247a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1248provide AnyEvent compatibility.
1249
1250If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
1251supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
1252pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
1253the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
1254C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
1255AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
1256
1257Example:
1258
1259 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1260
1261This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1262package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1263
1264When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1265will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1266C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1267
1268The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1269L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1270and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1271see the sources.
1272
1273If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1274provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1275
1276The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1277terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1278in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1279inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1280I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1281
1282I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1283condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1284C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1285not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1286
1287=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1288
1289The following environment variables are used by this module:
1290
1291=over 4
1292
1293=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1294
1295By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1296conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1297talkative.
1298
1299When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1300conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1301C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1302
1303When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1304model it chooses.
1305
1306=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1307
1308AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1309argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1310will cause AnyEvent to thoroughly check the arguments passed to most
1311method calls and croaks if it finds any problems. In other words, enables
1312"strict" mode. Unlike C<use strict> it is definitely recommended ot keep
1313it off in production.
1314
1315=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1316
1317This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1318auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1319entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1320and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1321used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1322auto detection and -probing.
1323
1324This functionality might change in future versions.
1325
1326For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1327could start your program like this:
1328
1329 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1330
1331=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1332
1333Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1334for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1335of auto probing).
1336
1337Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1338current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1339used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1340list.
1341
1342This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1343against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1344small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1345
1346Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1347but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1348- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1349addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1350IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1351
1352=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1353
1354Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1355for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1356some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1357default.
1358
1359Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1360EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1361
1362=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1363
1364The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1365will create in parallel.
127 1366
128=back 1367=back
129 1368
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 1369=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
138 1370
139The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 1371The 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 1372to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
141when the user enters quit: 1373program when the user enters quit:
142 1374
143 use AnyEvent; 1375 use AnyEvent;
144 1376
145 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 1377 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
146 1378
147 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 1379 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1380 fh => \*STDIN,
1381 poll => 'r',
1382 cb => sub {
148 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1383 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
149 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1384 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
150 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1385 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
151 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1386 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1387 },
152 }); 1388 );
153 1389
154 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once 1390 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
155 1391
156 sub new_timer { 1392 sub new_timer {
157 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 1393 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
160 }); 1396 });
161 } 1397 }
162 1398
163 new_timer; # create first timer 1399 new_timer; # create first timer
164 1400
165 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1401 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
166 1402
167=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 1403=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
168 1404
169Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 1405Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
170API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 1406API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
220 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 1456 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
221 or die "connection or write error"; 1457 or die "connection or write error";
222 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 1458 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
223 1459
224Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 1460Again, 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: 1461result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
226 1462
227 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 1463 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
228 1464
229 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 1465 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
230 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 1466 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
231 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 1467 $txn->{finished}->send;
232 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 1468 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
233 } 1469 }
234 1470
235The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 1471The 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 1472request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
237data: 1473data:
238 1474
239 $txn->{finished}->wait; 1475 $txn->{finished}->recv;
240 return $txn->{result}; 1476 return $txn->{result};
241 1477
242The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 1478The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
243that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 1479that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
244wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 1480whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
245and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 1481and 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 1482problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
247random callback. 1483random callback.
248 1484
249All of this enables the following usage styles: 1485All of this enables the following usage styles:
250 1486
2511. Blocking: 14871. Blocking:
252 1488
253 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); 1489 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
254 1490
2552. Blocking, but parallelizing: 14912. Blocking, but running in parallel:
256 1492
257 my @datas = map $_->result, 1493 my @datas = map $_->result,
258 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_), 1494 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
259 @urls; 1495 @urls;
260 1496
261Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know 1497Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
262anything about events. 1498anything about events.
263 1499
2643a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module: 15003a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
265 1501
266 use Event; 1502 use EV;
267 1503
268 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1504 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
269 my $txn = shift; 1505 my $txn = shift;
270 my $data = $txn->result; 1506 my $data = $txn->result;
271 ... 1507 ...
272 }); 1508 });
273 1509
274 Event::loop; 1510 EV::loop;
275 1511
2763b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too: 15123b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
277 1513
278 use AnyEvent; 1514 use AnyEvent;
279 1515
280 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 1516 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
281 1517
282 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1518 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
283 ... 1519 ...
284 $quit->broadcast; 1520 $quit->send;
285 }); 1521 });
286 1522
287 $quit->wait; 1523 $quit->recv;
1524
1525
1526=head1 BENCHMARKS
1527
1528To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1529over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1530of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1531
1532=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1533
1534Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1535through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1536timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1537which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1538
1539Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1540distribution.
1541
1542=head3 Explanation of the columns
1543
1544I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1545different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1546loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1547and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1548would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1549of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1550
1551I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1552RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1553and Perl-based overheads.
1554
1555I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1556takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1557all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1558and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1559
1560I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1561callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1562invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1563signal the end of this phase.
1564
1565I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1566watcher.
1567
1568=head3 Results
1569
1570 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1571 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1572 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1573 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1574 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1575 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1576 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1577 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1578 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1579 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1580 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1581
1582=head3 Discussion
1583
1584The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1585well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1586can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1587file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1588the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1589boost.
1590
1591Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1592overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1593the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1594higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1595
1596To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1597benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1598EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1599cycles with POE.
1600
1601C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1602maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1603far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1604natively.
1605
1606The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1607constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1608interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1609adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1610performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1611them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1612
1613The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1614cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1615
1616C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1617faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1618C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1619watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1620making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1621(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1622inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1623
1624The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1625more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1626precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1627file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1628employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1629hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1630above).
1631
1632C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1633select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1634be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1635memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1636as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1637requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1638invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1639implementation.
1640
1641The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1642for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1643small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1644optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1645using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1646memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1647design).
1648
1649=head3 Summary
1650
1651=over 4
1652
1653=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1654(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1655performance with or without AnyEvent.
1656
1657=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1658the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1659adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1660
1661=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1662reasonable memory usage.
1663
1664=back
1665
1666=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1667
1668This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1669creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1670timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1671watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1672watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1673
1674The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1675are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1676fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1677timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1678most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1679
1680In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1681(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1682connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1683
1684Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1685distribution.
1686
1687=head3 Explanation of the columns
1688
1689I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1690each server has a read and write socket end).
1691
1692I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1693nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1694
1695I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1696single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1697it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1698a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1699
1700=head3 Results
1701
1702 name sockets create request
1703 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1704 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1705 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1706 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1707 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1708
1709=head3 Discussion
1710
1711This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1712particular event loop.
1713
1714EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1715is relatively high, though.
1716
1717Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1718loops Event and Glib.
1719
1720Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1721understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1722the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1723uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1724
1725Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1726clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1727
1728POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1729as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1730it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1731
1732=head3 Summary
1733
1734=over 4
1735
1736=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1737
1738=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1739
1740=back
1741
1742=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1743
1744While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1745large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1746I/O watchers.
1747
1748In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1749case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1750one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1751well.
1752
1753The columns are identical to the previous table.
1754
1755=head3 Results
1756
1757 name sockets create request
1758 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1759 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1760 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1761 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1762 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1763
1764=head3 Discussion
1765
1766The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1767server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1768in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1769to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1770speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1771them).
1772
1773EV is again fastest.
1774
1775Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1776loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1777matter.
1778
1779POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1780others.
1781
1782=head3 Summary
1783
1784=over 4
1785
1786=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1787watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1788
1789=back
1790
1791
1792=head1 FORK
1793
1794Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1795because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1796calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1797
1798If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1799watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1800
1801
1802=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1803
1804AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1805$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1806execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1807make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1808will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1809specified in the variable.
1810
1811You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1812before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1813
1814 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1815
1816 use AnyEvent;
1817
1818Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1819be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1820probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
1821$ENV{PERL_ANYEGENT_STRICT}.
1822
1823
1824=head1 BUGS
1825
1826Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
1827to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
1828and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
1829mamleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
1830pronounced).
1831
288 1832
289=head1 SEE ALSO 1833=head1 SEE ALSO
290 1834
291Event modules: L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>. 1835Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
292 1836
293Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 1837Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1838L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
294 1839
295Nontrivial usage example: L<Net::FCP>. 1840Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1841L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1842L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1843L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
296 1844
297=head1 1845Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1846servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1847
1848Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1849
1850Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1851
1852Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1853
1854
1855=head1 AUTHOR
1856
1857 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1858 http://home.schmorp.de/
298 1859
299=cut 1860=cut
300 1861
3011 18621
302 1863

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