[ViewVC] Diff of: cvs/AnyEvent/lib/AnyEvent.pm

Comparing AnyEvent/lib/AnyEvent.pm (file contents):
Revision 1.57 by root, Thu Apr 24 03:19:28 2008 UTC vs.
Revision 1.95 by root, Sat Apr 26 11:06:45 2008 UTC

…		…
1	=head1 NAME	1	=head1 NAME
2		2
3	AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops	3	AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4		4
5	EV, Event, Coro::EV, Coro::Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt - various supported event loops	5	EV, 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
9	use AnyEvent;	9	use AnyEvent;
10		10
78		78
79	The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>	79	The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
80	module.	80	module.
81		81
82	During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries	82	During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
83	to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of	83	to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
84	the following modules is already loaded: L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,	84	following modules is already loaded: L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>, L<EV>,
85	L<EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>. The first one	85	L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
86	found is used. If none are found, the module tries to load these modules	86	L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
87	(excluding Event::Lib and Qt) in the order given. The first one that can	87	to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
		88	adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
88	be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be	89	be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
89	found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not	90	found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
90	very efficient, but should work everywhere.	91	very efficient, but should work everywhere.
91		92
92	Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading	93	Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
…		…
135		136
136	Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,	137	Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
137	my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are	138	my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
138	declared.	139	declared.
139		140
140	=head2 IO WATCHERS	141	=head2 I/O WATCHERS
141		142
142	You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method	143	You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
143	with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:	144	with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
144		145
145	C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch for	146	C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch
146	events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which	147	for events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>,
147	creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events,	148	which creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events,
148	respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle	149	respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle
149	becomes ready.	150	becomes ready.
150		151
151	As long as the I/O watcher exists it will keep the file descriptor or a	152	Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
152	copy of it alive/open.	153	presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
		154	callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
153		155
		156	The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
154	It is not allowed to close a file handle as long as any watcher is active	157	You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
155	on the underlying file descriptor.	158	underlying file descriptor.
156		159
157	Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should	160	Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
158	always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file	161	always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
159	handles.	162	handles.
160		163
…		…
171		174
172	You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>	175	You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
173	method with the following mandatory arguments:	176	method with the following mandatory arguments:
174		177
175	C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are	178	C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
176	supported) should the timer activate. C<cb> the callback to invoke in that	179	supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
177	case.	180	in that case.
		181
		182	Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
		183	presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
		184	callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
178		185
179	The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating	186	The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
180	timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk	187	timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
181	and Glib).	188	and Glib).
182		189
…		…
207		214
208	There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire	215	There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
209	in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12	216	in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
210	o'clock").	217	o'clock").
211		218
212	While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they use	219	While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
213	absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock "jumps",	220	use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
214	for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from the wrong 2014-01-01 to	221	"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
215	2008-01-01, a watcher that you created to fire "after" a second might actually take	222	the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
216	six years to finally fire.	223	fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
217		224
218	AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious	225	AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
219	about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer) and	226	about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
220	absolute (ev_periodic) timers.	227	on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
		228	timers.
221		229
222	AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the	230	AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
223	AnyEvent API.	231	AnyEvent API.
224		232
225	=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS	233	=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
226		234
227	You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal	235	You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
228	I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to	236	I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to
229	be invoked whenever a signal occurs.	237	be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
230		238
		239	Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
		240	presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
		241	callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
		242
231	Multiple signals occurances can be clumped together into one callback	243	Multiple signal occurances can be clumped together into one callback
232	invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means	244	invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means
233	that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,	245	that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
234	but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.	246	but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
235		247
236	The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal	248	The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
…		…
249		261
250	The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it	262	The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
251	watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often	263	watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
252	as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a	264	as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
253	signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid	265	signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
254	and exit status (as returned by waitpid).	266	and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
		267	you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
255		268
256	Example: wait for pid 1333	269	There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
		270	I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
		271	have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
		272
		273	Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
		274	event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
		275	loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
		276
		277	This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
		278	AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
		279	C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
		280
		281	Example: 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;
257		288
258	my $w = AnyEvent->child (	289	my $w = AnyEvent->child (
259	pid => 1333,	290	pid => $pid,
260	cb => sub {	291	cb => sub {
261	my ($pid, $status) = @_;	292	my ($pid, $status) = @_;
262	warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";	293	warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
		294	$done->broadcast;
263	},	295	},
264	);	296	);
		297
		298	# do something else, then wait for process exit
		299	$done->wait;
265		300
266	=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES	301	=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
267		302
268	Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >>	303	Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >>
269	method without any arguments.	304	method without any arguments.
…		…
357	AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.	392	AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.
358	AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent based on Coro::Event, second best choice.	393	AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
359	AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).	394	AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
360	AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.	395	AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
361	AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.	396	AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
		397	AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient but portable.
362	AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.	398	AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
363	AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient but portable.
364	AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).	399	AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
365	AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.	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
		403	There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
		404	watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
		405	POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
		406	second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
		407	AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
		408	it's adaptor.
		409
		410	AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
		411	autodetecting them.
366		412
367	=item AnyEvent::detect	413	=item AnyEvent::detect
368		414
369	Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model	415	Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
370	if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would	416	if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
…		…
421	no warnings;	467	no warnings;
422	use strict;	468	use strict;
423		469
424	use Carp;	470	use Carp;
425		471
426	our $VERSION = '3.12';	472	our $VERSION = '3.3';
427	our $MODEL;	473	our $MODEL;
428		474
429	our $AUTOLOAD;	475	our $AUTOLOAD;
430	our @ISA;	476	our @ISA;
431		477
…		…
438	[Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent::],	484	[Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent::],
439	[EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],	485	[EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
440	[Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],	486	[Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
441	[Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],	487	[Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
442	[Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],	488	[Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
		489	[Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
		490	[Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
443	[AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],	491	[AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
444	);	492	# everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
445	my @models_detect = (	493	[Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
446	[Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program	494	[Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
447	[Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy	495	[POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
448	);	496	);
449		497
450	our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar broadcast wait one_event DESTROY);	498	our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar broadcast wait one_event DESTROY);
451		499
452	sub detect() {	500	sub detect() {
…		…
456	if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {	504	if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
457	my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";	505	my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
458	if (eval "require $model") {	506	if (eval "require $model") {
459	$MODEL = $model;	507	$MODEL = $model;
460	warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;	508	warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$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 $verbose;
461	}	511	}
462	}	512	}
463		513
464	# check for already loaded models	514	# check for already loaded models
465	unless ($MODEL) {	515	unless ($MODEL) {
466	for (@REGISTRY, @models, @models_detect) {	516	for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
467	my ($package, $model) = @$_;	517	my ($package, $model) = @$_;
468	if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {	518	if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
469	if (eval "require $model") {	519	if (eval "require $model") {
470	$MODEL = $model;	520	$MODEL = $model;
471	warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;	521	warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
…		…
658		708
659	=over 4	709	=over 4
660		710
661	=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>	711	=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
662		712
		713	By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
		714	conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
		715	talkative.
		716
		717	When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
		718	conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
		719	C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
		720
663	When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event	721	When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
664	model it chooses.	722	model it chooses.
665		723
666	=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>	724	=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
667		725
…		…
681		739
682	=back	740	=back
683		741
684	=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM	742	=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
685		743
686	The following program uses an IO watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer	744	The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
687	to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the	745	to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
688	program when the user enters quit:	746	program when the user enters quit:
689		747
690	use AnyEvent;	748	use AnyEvent;
691		749
…		…
835	$quit->broadcast;	893	$quit->broadcast;
836	});	894	});
837		895
838	$quit->wait;	896	$quit->wait;
839		897
		898
		899	=head1 BENCHMARKS
		900
		901	To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
		902	over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
		903	of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
		904
		905	=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
		906
		907	Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
		908	through anyevent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
		909	timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
		910	which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
		911
		912	Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
		913	distribution.
		914
		915	=head3 Explanation of the columns
		916
		917	I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
		918	different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
		919	loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
		920	and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
		921	would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
		922	of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
		923
		924	I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
		925	RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
		926	and Perl-based overheads.
		927
		928	I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
		929	takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
		930	all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
		931	and memory usage is not included in the figures.
		932
		933	I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
		934	callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
		935	invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->broadcast >> a condvar once to
		936	signal the end of this phase.
		937
		938	I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
		939	watcher.
		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
		957	The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
		958	well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
		959	can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
		960	file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
		961	the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
		962	boost.
		963
		964	Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
		965	overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
		966	the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
		967	higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
		968
		969	C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
		970	maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
		971	far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
		972	natively.
		973
		974	The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
		975	constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
		976	interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
		977	adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
		978	performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
		979	them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
		980
		981	The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
		982	cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
		983
		984	C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
		985	faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
		986	C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
		987	watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
		988	making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
		989	(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
		990	inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
		991
		992	The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
		993	more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
		994	precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
		995	file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
		996	employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
		997	hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
		998	above).
		999
		1000	C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure
		1001	perl select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend
		1002	couldn't be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance
		1003	and memory usage: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory as
		1004	EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
		1005	requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
		1006	invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
		1007	implementation. The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not
		1008	really account for this, as session creation overhead is small compared
		1009	to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty optimally within
		1010	L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>. POE simply seems to be abysmally slow.
		1011
		1012	=head3 Summary
		1013
		1014	=over 4
		1015
		1016	=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
		1017	(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
		1018	performance with or without AnyEvent.
		1019
		1020	=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
		1021	the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
		1022	adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
		1023
		1024	=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
		1025	reasonable memory usage.
		1026
		1027	=back
		1028
		1029	=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
		1030
		1031	This benchmark atcually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
		1032	creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socketpair, a
		1033	timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
		1034	watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
		1035	watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
		1036
		1037	The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
		1038	are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
		1039	fds for each loop iterstaion, but which fds these are is random). The
		1040	timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
		1041	most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
		1042
		1043	In this benchmark, we use 10000 socketpairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
		1044	(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
		1045	connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
		1046
		1047	Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
		1048	distribution.
		1049
		1050	=head3 Explanation of the columns
		1051
		1052	I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
		1053	each server has a read and write socket end).
		1054
		1055	I<create> is the time it takes to create a socketpair (which is
		1056	nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
		1057
		1058	I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
		1059	single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
		1060	it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
		1061	a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
		1062
		1063	=head3 Results
		1064
		1065	name sockets create request
		1066	EV 20000 69.01 11.16
		1067	Perl 20000 75.28 112.76
		1068	Event 20000 212.62 257.32
		1069	Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
		1070	POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
		1071
		1072	=head3 Discussion
		1073
		1074	This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
		1075	particular event loop.
		1076
		1077	EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
		1078	is relatively high, though.
		1079
		1080	Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
		1081	loops Event and Glib.
		1082
		1083	Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
		1084	understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
		1085	the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
		1086	uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
		1087
		1088	Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
		1089	clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
		1090
		1091	POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
		1092	as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
		1093	it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
		1094
		1095	=head3 Summary
		1096
		1097	=over 4
		1098
		1099	=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well, considering
		1100	that it uses select.
		1101
		1102	=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
		1103
		1104	=back
		1105
		1106	=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
		1107
		1108	While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
		1109	large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
		1110	I/O watchers.
		1111
		1112	In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
		1113	case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
		1114	one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
		1115	well.
		1116
		1117	The columns are identical to the previous table.
		1118
		1119	=head3 Results
		1120
		1121	name sockets create request
		1122	EV 16 20.00 6.54
		1123	Event 16 81.27 35.86
		1124	Glib 16 32.63 15.48
		1125	Perl 16 24.62 162.37
		1126	POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
		1127
		1128	=head3 Discussion
		1129
		1130	The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
		1131	server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
		1132	in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
		1133	to the small absolute number of watchers.
		1134
		1135	EV is again fastest.
		1136
		1137	The C-based event loops Event and Glib come in second this time, as the
		1138	overhead of running an iteration is much smaller in C than in Perl (little
		1139	code to execute in the inner loop, and perl's function calling overhead is
		1140	high, and updating all the data structures is costly).
		1141
		1142	The pure perl event loop is much slower, but still competitive.
		1143
		1144	POE also performs much better in this case, but is is stillf ar behind the
		1145	others.
		1146
		1147	=head3 Summary
		1148
		1149	=over 4
		1150
		1151	=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
		1152	watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
		1153
		1154	=back
		1155
		1156
840	=head1 FORK	1157	=head1 FORK
841		1158
842	Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are	1159	Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
843	because they are so inefficient. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.	1160	because they are so inefficient. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
844		1161
845	If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first	1162	If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
846	watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.	1163	watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
		1164
847		1165
848	=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS	1166	=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
849		1167
850	AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via	1168	AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
851	$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to	1169	$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
…		…
859		1177
860	BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }	1178	BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
861		1179
862	use AnyEvent;	1180	use AnyEvent;
863		1181
		1182
864	=head1 SEE ALSO	1183	=head1 SEE ALSO
865		1184
866	Event modules: L<Coro::EV>, L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>,	1185	Event modules: L<Coro::EV>, L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>,
867	L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, L<Coro>, L<Tk>,	1186	L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, L<Coro>, L<Tk>,
868	L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>.	1187	L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
869		1188
870	Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>,	1189	Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>,
871	L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>,	1190	L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>,
872	L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>,	1191	L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>,
873	L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>.	1192	L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
874		1193
875	Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>.	1194	Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>.
		1195
876		1196
877	=head1 AUTHOR	1197	=head1 AUTHOR
878		1198
879	Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>	1199	Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
880	http://home.schmorp.de/	1200	http://home.schmorp.de/

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Comparing AnyEvent/lib/AnyEvent.pm (file contents): Revision 1.57 by root, Thu Apr 24 03:19:28 2008 UTC vs. Revision 1.95 by root, Sat Apr 26 11:06:45 2008 UTC

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Comparing AnyEvent/lib/AnyEvent.pm (file contents):
Revision 1.57 by root, Thu Apr 24 03:19:28 2008 UTC vs.
Revision 1.95 by root, Sat Apr 26 11:06:45 2008 UTC