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Revision 1.2 by root, Thu Dec 1 18:56:18 2005 UTC vs.
Revision 1.94 by root, Sat Apr 26 04:33:51 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, Coro::EV, Coro::Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6 6
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 7=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 8
9use AnyEvent; 9 use AnyEvent;
10 10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (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 });
14
15 my $w = AnyEvent->io (after => $seconds, cb => sub { 15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 ... 16 ...
17 }); 17 });
18 18
19 # watchers get canceled whenever $w is destroyed 19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
20 # only one watcher per $fh and $poll type is allowed
21 # (i.e. on a socket you cna have one r + one w or one rw
22 # watcher, not any more.
23 # timers can only be used once
24
25 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # kind of main loop replacement
26 # can only be used once
27 $w->wait; # enters main loop till $condvar gets ->send 20 $w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast
28 $w->broadcast; # wake up waiting and future wait's 21 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's
22
23=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24
25Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
26nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
27
28Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
29policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
30
31First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
32interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use in a
33pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
34the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
35only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
36helps hiding the differences between those event loops.
37
38The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
39programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
40religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
41module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
42model you use.
43
44For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
45actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
46like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
47cannot use anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that
48isn't itself. What's worse, all the potential users of your module are
49I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
50
51AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
52fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
53with the rest: POE + IO::Async? no go. Tk + Event? no go. Again: if
54your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
55too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
56event models it supports (including stuff like POE and IO::Async, as long
57as those use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new
58event loops to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
59
60In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
61model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
62modules, you get an enourmous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
64offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
65technically possible.
66
67Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
68useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
69model, you should I<not> use this module.
70
29 71
30=head1 DESCRIPTION 72=head1 DESCRIPTION
31 73
32L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 74L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
33allows module authors to utilizy an event loop without forcing module 75allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
34users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist 76users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
35peacefully at any one time). 77peacefully at any one time).
36 78
37The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 79The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
38module. 80module.
39 81
40On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 82During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
41loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 83to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
42loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 84following modules is already loaded: L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>, L<EV>,
43used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 85L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
44order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 86L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
45used. If still none could be found, it will issue an error. 87to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
88adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
89be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
90found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
91very efficient, but should work everywhere.
92
93Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
94an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
95that model the default. For example:
96
97 use Tk;
98 use AnyEvent;
99
100 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
101
102The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
103starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
104use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
105
106The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
107C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
108explicitly.
109
110=head1 WATCHERS
111
112AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
113stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
114the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc.
115
116These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
117creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
118callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
119is in control).
120
121To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
122variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
123to it).
124
125All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
126
127Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
128example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
129
130An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
131
132 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
133 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
134 undef $w;
135 });
136
137Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
138my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
139declared.
140
141=head2 I/O WATCHERS
142
143You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
144with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
145
146C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch
147for events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>,
148which creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events,
149respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle
150becomes ready.
151
152Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
153presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
154callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
155
156The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
157You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
158underlying file descriptor.
159
160Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
161always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
162handles.
163
164Example:
165
166 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher
167 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
168 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
169 warn "read: $input\n";
170 undef $w;
171 });
172
173=head2 TIME WATCHERS
174
175You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
176method with the following mandatory arguments:
177
178C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
179supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
180in that case.
181
182Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
183presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
184callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
185
186The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
187timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
188and Glib).
189
190Example:
191
192 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds
193 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
194 warn "timeout\n";
195 });
196
197 # to cancel the timer:
198 undef $w;
199
200Example 2:
201
202 # fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second
203 my $w;
204
205 my $cb = sub {
206 # cancel the old timer while creating a new one
207 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => $cb);
208 };
209
210 # start the "loop" by creating the first watcher
211 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, cb => $cb);
212
213=head3 TIMING ISSUES
214
215There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
216in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
217o'clock").
218
219While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
220use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
221"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
222the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
223fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
224
225AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
226about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
227on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
228timers.
229
230AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
231AnyEvent API.
232
233=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
234
235You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
236I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to
237be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
238
239Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
240presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
241callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
242
243Multiple signal occurances can be clumped together into one callback
244invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means
245that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
246but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
247
248The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
249between multiple watchers.
250
251This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
252directly will likely not work correctly.
253
254Example: exit on SIGINT
255
256 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
257
258=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
259
260You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
261
262The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
263watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
264as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
265signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
266and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
267you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
268
269There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
270I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
271have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
272
273Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
274event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
275loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
276
277This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
278AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
279C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
280
281Example: fork a process and wait for it
282
283 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
284
285 AnyEvent::detect; # force event module to be initialised
286
287 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
288
289 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
290 pid => $pid,
291 cb => sub {
292 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
293 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
294 $done->broadcast;
295 },
296 );
297
298 # do something else, then wait for process exit
299 $done->wait;
300
301=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
302
303Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >>
304method without any arguments.
305
306A condition variable waits for a condition - precisely that the C<<
307->broadcast >> method has been called.
308
309They are very useful to signal that a condition has been fulfilled, for
310example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
311then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
312availability of results.
313
314You can also use condition variables to block your main program until
315an event occurs - for example, you could C<< ->wait >> in your main
316program until the user clicks the Quit button in your app, which would C<<
317->broadcast >> the "quit" event.
318
319Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
320two pirces of code that call C<< ->wait >> in a round-robbin fashion, you
321lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
322you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
323as this asks for trouble.
324
325This object has two methods:
46 326
47=over 4 327=over 4
48 328
329=item $cv->wait
330
331Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been
332called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally.
333
334You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return
335immediately.
336
337Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
338(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
339using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
340caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
341condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
342callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
343while still suppporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
344
345Another reason I<never> to C<< ->wait >> in a module is that you cannot
346sensibly have two C<< ->wait >>'s in parallel, as that would require
347multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
348can supply (the coroutine-aware backends L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV> and
349L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent> explicitly support concurrent C<< ->wait >>'s
350from different coroutines, however).
351
352=item $cv->broadcast
353
354Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->wait >> and all further
355calls to C<wait> will (eventually) return after this method has been
356called. If nobody is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
357
358=back
359
360Example:
361
362 # wait till the result is ready
363 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
364
365 # do something such as adding a timer
366 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast
367 # when the "result" is ready.
368 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
369 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
370 after => 1,
371 cb => sub { $result_ready->broadcast },
372 );
373
374 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the watcher
375 # calls broadcast
376 $result_ready->wait;
377
378=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
379
380=over 4
381
382=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
383
384Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
385contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
386Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
387C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
388AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
389
390The known classes so far are:
391
392 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.
393 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
394 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
395 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
396 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
397 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient but portable.
398 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
399 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
400 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
401 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
402
403There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
404watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
405POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
406second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
407AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
408it's adaptor.
409
410AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
411autodetecting them.
412
413=item AnyEvent::detect
414
415Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
416if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
417have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
418runtime.
419
420=back
421
422=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
423
424As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
425freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
426
427Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
428decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
429by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
430to load the event module first.
431
432Never call C<< ->wait >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
433the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been called on it already. This is
434because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
435events is to stay interactive.
436
437It is fine, however, to call C<< ->wait >> when the user of your module
438requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
439called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->wait >>
440freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
441
442=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
443
444There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
445dictate which event model to use.
446
447If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
448do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
449decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
450
451If the main program relies on a specific event model. For example, in
452Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module. You should load the
453event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
454speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
455modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
456decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
457might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
458
459You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
460loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar
461behaviour everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose is generally better.
462
49=cut 463=cut
50 464
51package AnyEvent; 465package AnyEvent;
52 466
53no warnings; 467no warnings;
54use strict 'vars'; 468use strict;
469
55use Carp; 470use Carp;
56 471
57our $VERSION = 0.1; 472our $VERSION = '3.3';
58our $MODEL; 473our $MODEL;
59 474
60our $AUTOLOAD; 475our $AUTOLOAD;
61our @ISA; 476our @ISA;
62 477
478our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
479
480our @REGISTRY;
481
63my @models = ( 482my @models = (
64 [Coro => Coro::Event::], 483 [Coro::EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV::],
65 [Event => Event::], 484 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent::],
66 [Glib => Glib::], 485 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
67 [Tk => Tk::], 486 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
487 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
488 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
489 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
490 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
491 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
492 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
493 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
494 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
495 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
68); 496);
69 497
70sub AUTOLOAD { 498our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar broadcast wait one_event DESTROY);
71 $AUTOLOAD =~ s/.*://;
72 499
500sub detect() {
73 unless ($MODEL) { 501 unless ($MODEL) {
74 # check for already loaded models 502 no strict 'refs';
75 for (@models) {
76 my ($model, $package) = @$_;
77 if (scalar keys %{ *{"$package\::"} }) {
78 eval "require AnyEvent::Impl::$model"
79 or die;
80 503
81 last if $MODEL; 504 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
505 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
506 if (eval "require $model") {
507 $MODEL = $model;
508 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
509 } else {
510 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
82 } 511 }
83 } 512 }
84 513
514 # check for already loaded models
85 unless ($MODEL) { 515 unless ($MODEL) {
86 # try to load a model
87
88 for (@models) { 516 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
89 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 517 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
90 eval "require AnyEvent::Impl::$model" 518 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
519 if (eval "require $model") {
520 $MODEL = $model;
521 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
522 last;
91 or die; 523 }
92 524 }
93 last if $MODEL;
94 } 525 }
95 526
527 unless ($MODEL) {
528 # try to load a model
529
530 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
531 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
532 if (eval "require $package"
533 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
534 and eval "require $model") {
535 $MODEL = $model;
536 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
537 last;
538 }
539 }
540
96 $MODEL 541 $MODEL
97 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Coro, Event, Glib or Tk."; 542 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV (or Coro+EV), Event (or Coro+Event) or Glib.";
543 }
98 } 544 }
545
546 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
547 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
99 } 548 }
100 549
101 @ISA = $MODEL; 550 $MODEL
551}
552
553sub AUTOLOAD {
554 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
555
556 $method{$func}
557 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
558
559 detect unless $MODEL;
102 560
103 my $class = shift; 561 my $class = shift;
104 $class->$AUTOLOAD (@_); 562 $class->$func (@_);
105} 563}
106 564
565package AnyEvent::Base;
566
567# default implementation for ->condvar, ->wait, ->broadcast
568
569sub condvar {
570 bless \my $flag, "AnyEvent::Base::CondVar"
571}
572
573sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::broadcast {
574 ${$_[0]}++;
575}
576
577sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::wait {
578 AnyEvent->one_event while !${$_[0]};
579}
580
581# default implementation for ->signal
582
583our %SIG_CB;
584
585sub signal {
586 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
587
588 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
589 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
590
591 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
592 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
593 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
594 };
595
596 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
597}
598
599sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
600 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
601
602 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
603
604 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
605}
606
607# default implementation for ->child
608
609our %PID_CB;
610our $CHLD_W;
611our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
612our $PID_IDLE;
613our $WNOHANG;
614
615sub _child_wait {
616 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
617 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
618 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
619 }
620
621 undef $PID_IDLE;
622}
623
624sub _sigchld {
625 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
626 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
627 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
628 &_child_wait;
629 });
630}
631
632sub child {
633 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
634
635 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
636 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
637
638 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
639
640 unless ($WNOHANG) {
641 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
642 }
643
644 unless ($CHLD_W) {
645 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
646 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
647 &_sigchld;
648 }
649
650 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
651}
652
653sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
654 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
655
656 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
657 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
658
659 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
660}
661
662=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
663
664This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
665a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
666provide AnyEvent compatibility.
667
668If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
669supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
670pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
671the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
672C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
673AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
674
675Example:
676
677 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
678
679This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
680package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
681
682When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
683will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
684C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
685
686The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
687L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
688and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
689see the sources.
690
691If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
692provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
693
694The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
695terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
696in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
697inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
698I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
699
700I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
701condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
702C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
703not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
704
705=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
706
707The following environment variables are used by this module:
708
709=over 4
710
711=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
712
713By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
714conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
715talkative.
716
717When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
718conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
719C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
720
721When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
722model it chooses.
723
724=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
725
726This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
727autodetection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
728entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
729and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
730used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
731autodetection and -probing.
732
733This functionality might change in future versions.
734
735For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
736could start your program like this:
737
738 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
739
107=back 740=back
108 741
109=head1 EXAMPLE 742=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
110 743
111The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 744The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
112to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 745to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
113when the user enters quit: 746program when the user enters quit:
114 747
115 use AnyEvent; 748 use AnyEvent;
116 749
117 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 750 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
118 751
119 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 752 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
753 fh => \*STDIN,
754 poll => 'r',
755 cb => sub {
120 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 756 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
121 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 757 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
122 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 758 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
123 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 759 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
760 },
124 }); 761 );
125 762
126 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once 763 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
127 764
128 sub new_timer { 765 sub new_timer {
129 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 766 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
134 771
135 new_timer; # create first timer 772 new_timer; # create first timer
136 773
137 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 774 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i
138 775
776=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
777
778Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
779API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
780
781 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
782
783 my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
784 $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
785 my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
786
787The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
788given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
789
790 sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
791
792And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
793L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
794
795More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
796(completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
797
798 my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
799
800It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
801of the request:
802
803 $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
804
805It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
806
807 socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
808 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
809 connect $txn->{fh}, ...
810 and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
811 and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
812 and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
813
814Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
815or the connection succeeds:
816
817 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
818
819And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
820called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
821writing.
822
823The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
824request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
825data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
826this example:
827
828 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
829 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
830 or die "connection or write error";
831 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
832
833Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
834result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished:
835
836 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
837
838 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
839 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
840 $txn->{finished}->broadcast;
841 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
842 }
843
844The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
845request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
846data:
847
848 $txn->{finished}->wait;
849 return $txn->{result};
850
851The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
852that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects
853whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
854and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
855problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
856random callback.
857
858All of this enables the following usage styles:
859
8601. Blocking:
861
862 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
863
8642. Blocking, but running in parallel:
865
866 my @datas = map $_->result,
867 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
868 @urls;
869
870Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
871anything about events.
872
8733a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
874
875 use EV;
876
877 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
878 my $txn = shift;
879 my $data = $txn->result;
880 ...
881 });
882
883 EV::loop;
884
8853b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
886
887 use AnyEvent;
888
889 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
890
891 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
892 ...
893 $quit->broadcast;
894 });
895
896 $quit->wait;
897
898
899=head1 BENCHMARKS
900
901To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
902over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
903of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
904
905=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
906
907Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
908through anyevent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
909timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
910which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
911
912Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
913distribution.
914
915=head3 Explanation of the columns
916
917I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
918different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
919loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
920and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
921would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
922of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
923
924I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
925RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
926and Perl-based overheads.
927
928I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
929takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
930all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
931and memory usage is not included in the figures.
932
933I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
934callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
935invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->broadcast >> a condvar once to
936signal the end of this phase.
937
938I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
939watcher.
940
941=head3 Results
942
943 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
944 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
945 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
946 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
947 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
948 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
949 Event/Any 16000 936 39.17 33.63 1.43 Event + AnyEvent watchers
950 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
951 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
952 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
953 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
954
955=head3 Discussion
956
957The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
958well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
959can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
960file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
961the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
962boost.
963
964C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
965maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
966far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
967natively.
968
969The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
970constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
971interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
972adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
973performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
974them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
975
976The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
977cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
978
979C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
980faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
981C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
982watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
983making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
984(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
985inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
986
987The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
988more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
989precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
990file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
991employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
992hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
993above).
994
995C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure
996perl select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend
997couldn't be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance
998and memory usage: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory as
999EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1000requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1001invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1002implementation. The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not
1003really account for this, as session creation overhead is small compared
1004to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty optimally within
1005L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>. POE simply seems to be abysmally slow.
1006
1007=head3 Summary
1008
1009=over 4
1010
1011=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1012(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1013performance with or without AnyEvent.
1014
1015=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1016the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1017adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1018
1019=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1020reasonable memory usage.
1021
1022=back
1023
1024=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1025
1026This benchmark atcually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1027creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socketpair, a
1028timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1029watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1030watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1031
1032The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1033are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1034fds for each loop iterstaion, but which fds these are is random). The
1035timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1036most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1037
1038In this benchmark, we use 10000 socketpairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1039(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1040connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1041
1042Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1043distribution.
1044
1045=head3 Explanation of the columns
1046
1047I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1048each server has a read and write socket end).
1049
1050I<create> is the time it takes to create a socketpair (which is
1051nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1052
1053I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1054single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1055it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1056a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1057
1058=head3 Results
1059
1060 name sockets create request
1061 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1062 Perl 20000 75.28 112.76
1063 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1064 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1065 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1066
1067=head3 Discussion
1068
1069This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1070particular event loop.
1071
1072EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1073is relatively high, though.
1074
1075Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1076loops Event and Glib.
1077
1078Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1079understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1080the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1081uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1082
1083Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1084clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1085
1086POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1087as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1088it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1089
1090=head3 Summary
1091
1092=over 4
1093
1094=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well, considering
1095that it uses select.
1096
1097=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1098
1099=back
1100
1101=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1102
1103While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1104large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1105I/O watchers.
1106
1107In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1108case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1109one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1110well.
1111
1112The columns are identical to the previous table.
1113
1114=head3 Results
1115
1116 name sockets create request
1117 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1118 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1119 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1120 Perl 16 24.62 162.37
1121 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1122
1123=head3 Discussion
1124
1125The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1126server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1127in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1128to the small absolute number of watchers.
1129
1130EV is again fastest.
1131
1132The C-based event loops Event and Glib come in second this time, as the
1133overhead of running an iteration is much smaller in C than in Perl (little
1134code to execute in the inner loop, and perl's function calling overhead is
1135high, and updating all the data structures is costly).
1136
1137The pure perl event loop is much slower, but still competitive.
1138
1139POE also performs much better in this case, but is is stillf ar behind the
1140others.
1141
1142=head3 Summary
1143
1144=over 4
1145
1146=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1147watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1148
1149=back
1150
1151
1152=head1 FORK
1153
1154Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1155because they are so inefficient. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1156
1157If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1158watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1159
1160
1161=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1162
1163AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1164$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1165execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1166make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1167will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1168specified in the variable.
1169
1170You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1171before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1172
1173 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1174
1175 use AnyEvent;
1176
1177
139=head1 SEE ALSO 1178=head1 SEE ALSO
140 1179
1180Event modules: L<Coro::EV>, L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>,
141L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, 1181L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, L<Coro>, L<Tk>,
142L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, 1182L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
143L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
144L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>,
145L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>.
146 1183
147=head1 1184Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>,
1185L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>,
1186L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>,
1187L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1188
1189Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>.
1190
1191
1192=head1 AUTHOR
1193
1194 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1195 http://home.schmorp.de/
148 1196
149=cut 1197=cut
150 1198
1511 11991
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