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Revision: 1.128
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# Content
1 =head1 => NAME
2
3 AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4
5 EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6
7 =head1 SYNOPSIS
8
9 use AnyEvent;
10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub {
12 ...
13 });
14
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 ...
17 });
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
20 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
21 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
22
23 =head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24
25 Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
26 nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
27
28 Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
29 policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
30
31 First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
32 interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use in a
33 pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
34 the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
35 only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
36 helps hiding the differences between those event loops.
37
38 The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
39 programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
40 religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
41 module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
42 model you use.
43
44 For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
45 actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
46 like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
47 cannot use anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that
48 isn't itself. What's worse, all the potential users of your module are
49 I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
50
51 AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
52 fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
53 with the rest: POE + IO::Async? no go. Tk + Event? no go. Again: if
54 your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
55 too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
56 event models it supports (including stuff like POE and IO::Async, as long
57 as those use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new
58 event loops to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
59
60 In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
61 model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
62 modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63 follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
64 offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
65 technically possible.
66
67 Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
68 useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
69 model, you should I<not> use this module.
70
71 =head1 DESCRIPTION
72
73 L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
74 allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
75 users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
76 peacefully at any one time).
77
78 The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
79 module.
80
81 During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
82 to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
83 following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
84 L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
85 L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
86 to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
87 adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
88 be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
89 found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
90 very efficient, but should work everywhere.
91
92 Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
93 an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
94 that model the default. For example:
95
96 use Tk;
97 use AnyEvent;
98
99 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
100
101 The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
102 starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
103 use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
104
105 The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
106 C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
107 explicitly.
108
109 =head1 WATCHERS
110
111 AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
112 stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
113 the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
114
115 These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
116 creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
117 callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
118 is in control).
119
120 To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
121 variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
122 to it).
123
124 All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
125
126 Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
127 example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
128
129 An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
130
131 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
132 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
133 undef $w;
134 });
135
136 Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
137 my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
138 declared.
139
140 =head2 I/O WATCHERS
141
142 You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
143 with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
144
145 C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch
146 for events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>,
147 which creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events,
148 respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle
149 becomes ready.
150
151 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
152 presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
153 callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
154
155 The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
156 You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
157 underlying file descriptor.
158
159 Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
160 always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
161 handles.
162
163 Example:
164
165 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher
166 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
167 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
168 warn "read: $input\n";
169 undef $w;
170 });
171
172 =head2 TIME WATCHERS
173
174 You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
175 method with the following mandatory arguments:
176
177 C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
178 supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
179 in that case.
180
181 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
182 presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
183 callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
184
185 The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
186 timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
187 and Glib).
188
189 Example:
190
191 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds
192 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
193 warn "timeout\n";
194 });
195
196 # to cancel the timer:
197 undef $w;
198
199 Example 2:
200
201 # fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second
202 my $w;
203
204 my $cb = sub {
205 # cancel the old timer while creating a new one
206 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => $cb);
207 };
208
209 # start the "loop" by creating the first watcher
210 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, cb => $cb);
211
212 =head3 TIMING ISSUES
213
214 There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
215 in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
216 o'clock").
217
218 While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
219 use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
220 "jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
221 the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
222 fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
223
224 AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
225 about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
226 on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
227 timers.
228
229 AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
230 AnyEvent API.
231
232 =head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
233
234 You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
235 I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to
236 be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
237
238 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
239 presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
240 callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
241
242 Multiple signal occurances can be clumped together into one callback
243 invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means
244 that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
245 but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
246
247 The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
248 between multiple watchers.
249
250 This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
251 directly will likely not work correctly.
252
253 Example: exit on SIGINT
254
255 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
256
257 =head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
258
259 You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
260
261 The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
262 watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
263 as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
264 signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
265 and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
266 you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
267
268 There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
269 I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
270 have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
271
272 Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
273 event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
274 loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
275
276 This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
277 AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
278 C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
279
280 Example: fork a process and wait for it
281
282 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
283
284 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
285
286 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
287 pid => $pid,
288 cb => sub {
289 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
290 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
291 $done->send;
292 },
293 );
294
295 # do something else, then wait for process exit
296 $done->recv;
297
298 =head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
299
300 If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
301 require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
302 will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
303
304 AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
305 will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
306
307 The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
308 because they represent a condition that must become true.
309
310 Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
311 >> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
312 C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
313 becomes true.
314
315 After creation, the conditon variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
316 by calling the C<send> method.
317
318 Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
319 optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
320 in time where multiple outstandign events have been processed. And yet
321 another way to call them is transations - each condition variable can be
322 used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
323 a result.
324
325 Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
326 for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
327 then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
328 availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
329 called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
330
331 You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
332 you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
333 could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
334 button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
335
336 Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
337 two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robbin fashion, you
338 lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
339 you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
340 as this asks for trouble.
341
342 Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
343 used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
344 easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
345 AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
346 it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
347
348 There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
349 eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
350 for the send to occur.
351
352 Example:
353
354 # wait till the result is ready
355 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
356
357 # do something such as adding a timer
358 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
359 # when the "result" is ready.
360 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
361 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
362 after => 1,
363 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
364 );
365
366 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
367 # calls send
368 $result_ready->recv;
369
370 =head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
371
372 These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
373 code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
374 the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
375 uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
376
377 =over 4
378
379 =item $cv->send (...)
380
381 Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
382 calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
383 called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
384
385 If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
386 immediately from within send.
387
388 Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
389 future C<< ->recv >> calls.
390
391 =item $cv->croak ($error)
392
393 Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
394 C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
395
396 This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
397 user/consumer.
398
399 =item $cv->begin ([group callback])
400
401 =item $cv->end
402
403 These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
404
405 These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
406 one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
407 to use a condition variable for the whole process.
408
409 Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
410 C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
411 >>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
412 is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
413 callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
414
415 Let's clarify this with the ping example:
416
417 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
418
419 my %result;
420 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
421
422 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
423 $cv->begin;
424 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
425 $result{$host} = ...;
426 $cv->end;
427 };
428 }
429
430 $cv->end;
431
432 This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
433 C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
434 order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
435 each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
436 it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
437 results arrive is not relevant.
438
439 There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
440 loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
441 to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
442 C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
443 doesn't execute once).
444
445 This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
446 use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
447 is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
448 C<begin> and for eahc subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
449
450 =back
451
452 =head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
453
454 These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
455 code awaits the condition.
456
457 =over 4
458
459 =item $cv->recv
460
461 Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
462 >> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
463 normally.
464
465 You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
466 will return immediately.
467
468 If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
469 function will call C<croak>.
470
471 In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
472 in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
473
474 Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
475 (programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
476 using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
477 caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
478 condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
479 callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
480 while still suppporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
481
482 Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
483 sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
484 multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
485 can supply.
486
487 The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
488 fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
489 versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
490 C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
491 coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
492
493 You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
494 only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
495 time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
496 waits otherwise.
497
498 =item $bool = $cv->ready
499
500 Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
501 C<croak> have been called.
502
503 =item $cb = $cv->cb ([new callback])
504
505 This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
506 replaces it before doing so.
507
508 The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
509 C<send> or C<croak> are called. Calling C<recv> inside the callback
510 or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
511
512 =back
513
514 =head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
515
516 =over 4
517
518 =item $AnyEvent::MODEL
519
520 Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
521 contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
522 Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
523 C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
524 AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
525
526 The known classes so far are:
527
528 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
529 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
530 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
531 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
532 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
533 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
534 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
535 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
536
537 There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
538 watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
539 POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
540 second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
541 AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
542 it's adaptor.
543
544 AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
545 autodetecting them.
546
547 =item AnyEvent::detect
548
549 Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
550 if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
551 have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
552 runtime.
553
554 =item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
555
556 Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
557 autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
558
559 If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
560 that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
561 L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
562
563 =item @AnyEvent::post_detect
564
565 If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
566 before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
567 the event loop has been chosen.
568
569 You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
570 if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
571 and the array will be ignored.
572
573 Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
574
575 =back
576
577 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
578
579 As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
580 freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
581
582 Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
583 decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
584 by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
585 to load the event module first.
586
587 Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
588 the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
589 because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
590 events is to stay interactive.
591
592 It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
593 requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
594 called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
595 freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
596
597 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
598
599 There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
600 dictate which event model to use.
601
602 If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
603 do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
604 decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
605
606 If the main program relies on a specific event model. For example, in
607 Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module. You should load the
608 event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
609 speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
610 modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
611 decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
612 might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
613
614 You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
615 loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar
616 behaviour everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose is generally better.
617
618 =head1 OTHER MODULES
619
620 The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
621 AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
622 in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
623 available via CPAN.
624
625 =over 4
626
627 =item L<AnyEvent::Util>
628
629 Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
630 functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
631
632 =item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
633
634 Provide read and write buffers and manages watchers for reads and writes.
635
636 =item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
637
638 Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
639 addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
640 connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
641
642 =item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
643
644 Provides a simple web application server framework.
645
646 =item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
647
648 Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
649
650 =item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
651
652 The fastest ping in the west.
653
654 =item L<Net::IRC3>
655
656 AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
657
658 =item L<Net::XMPP2>
659
660 AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
661
662 =item L<Net::FCP>
663
664 AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
665 of AnyEvent.
666
667 =item L<Event::ExecFlow>
668
669 High level API for event-based execution flow control.
670
671 =item L<Coro>
672
673 Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
674
675 =item L<AnyEvent::AIO>, L<IO::AIO>
676
677 Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
678 programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses IO::AIO and AnyEvent
679 together.
680
681 =item L<AnyEvent::BDB>, L<BDB>
682
683 Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
684 IO::AIO and AnyEvent together.
685
686 =item L<IO::Lambda>
687
688 The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
689
690 =back
691
692 =cut
693
694 package AnyEvent;
695
696 no warnings;
697 use strict;
698
699 use Carp;
700
701 our $VERSION = '3.6';
702 our $MODEL;
703
704 our $AUTOLOAD;
705 our @ISA;
706
707 our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
708
709 our @REGISTRY;
710
711 our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2)
712
713 {
714 my $idx;
715 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
716 for split /\s*,\s*/, $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
717 }
718
719 my @models = (
720 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
721 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
722 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
723 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
724 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
725 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
726 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
727 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
728 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
729 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
730 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
731 );
732
733 our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
734
735 our @post_detect;
736
737 sub post_detect(&) {
738 my ($cb) = @_;
739
740 if ($MODEL) {
741 $cb->();
742
743 1
744 } else {
745 push @post_detect, $cb;
746
747 defined wantarray
748 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
749 : ()
750 }
751 }
752
753 sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
754 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
755 }
756
757 sub detect() {
758 unless ($MODEL) {
759 no strict 'refs';
760
761 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
762 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
763 if (eval "require $model") {
764 $MODEL = $model;
765 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
766 } else {
767 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
768 }
769 }
770
771 # check for already loaded models
772 unless ($MODEL) {
773 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
774 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
775 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
776 if (eval "require $model") {
777 $MODEL = $model;
778 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
779 last;
780 }
781 }
782 }
783
784 unless ($MODEL) {
785 # try to load a model
786
787 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
788 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
789 if (eval "require $package"
790 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
791 and eval "require $model") {
792 $MODEL = $model;
793 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
794 last;
795 }
796 }
797
798 $MODEL
799 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
800 }
801 }
802
803 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
804 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
805
806 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
807 }
808
809 $MODEL
810 }
811
812 sub AUTOLOAD {
813 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
814
815 $method{$func}
816 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
817
818 detect unless $MODEL;
819
820 my $class = shift;
821 $class->$func (@_);
822 }
823
824 package AnyEvent::Base;
825
826 # default implementation for ->condvar
827
828 sub condvar {
829 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
830 }
831
832 # default implementation for ->signal
833
834 our %SIG_CB;
835
836 sub signal {
837 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
838
839 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
840 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
841
842 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
843 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
844 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
845 };
846
847 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
848 }
849
850 sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
851 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
852
853 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
854
855 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
856 }
857
858 # default implementation for ->child
859
860 our %PID_CB;
861 our $CHLD_W;
862 our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
863 our $PID_IDLE;
864 our $WNOHANG;
865
866 sub _child_wait {
867 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
868 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
869 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
870 }
871
872 undef $PID_IDLE;
873 }
874
875 sub _sigchld {
876 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
877 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
878 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
879 &_child_wait;
880 });
881 }
882
883 sub child {
884 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
885
886 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
887 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
888
889 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
890
891 unless ($WNOHANG) {
892 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
893 }
894
895 unless ($CHLD_W) {
896 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
897 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
898 &_sigchld;
899 }
900
901 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
902 }
903
904 sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
905 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
906
907 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
908 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
909
910 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
911 }
912
913 package AnyEvent::CondVar;
914
915 our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
916
917 package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
918
919 sub _send {
920 # nop
921 }
922
923 sub send {
924 my $cv = shift;
925 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
926 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
927 $cv->_send;
928 }
929
930 sub croak {
931 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
932 $_[0]->send;
933 }
934
935 sub ready {
936 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
937 }
938
939 sub _wait {
940 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
941 }
942
943 sub recv {
944 $_[0]->_wait;
945
946 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
947 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
948 }
949
950 sub cb {
951 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
952 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
953 }
954
955 sub begin {
956 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
957 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
958 }
959
960 sub end {
961 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
962 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
963 }
964
965 # undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
966 *broadcast = \&send;
967 *wait = \&_wait;
968
969 =head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
970
971 This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
972 a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
973 provide AnyEvent compatibility.
974
975 If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
976 supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
977 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
978 the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
979 C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
980 AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
981
982 Example:
983
984 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
985
986 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
987 package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
988
989 When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
990 will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
991 C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
992
993 The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
994 L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
995 and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
996 see the sources.
997
998 If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
999 provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1000
1001 The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1002 terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1003 in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1004 inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1005 I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1006
1007 I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1008 condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1009 C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1010 not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1011
1012 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1013
1014 The following environment variables are used by this module:
1015
1016 =over 4
1017
1018 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1019
1020 By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1021 conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1022 talkative.
1023
1024 When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1025 conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1026 C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1027
1028 When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1029 model it chooses.
1030
1031 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1032
1033 This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1034 auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1035 entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1036 and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1037 used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1038 auto detection and -probing.
1039
1040 This functionality might change in future versions.
1041
1042 For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1043 could start your program like this:
1044
1045 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1046
1047 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1048
1049 Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1050 for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1051 of auto probing).
1052
1053 Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1054 current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1055 used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1056 list.
1057
1058 This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1059 against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1060 small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1061
1062 Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1063 but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1064 - only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1065 addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1066 IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1067
1068 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1069
1070 Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1071 for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1072 some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1073 default.
1074
1075 Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1076 EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1077
1078 =back
1079
1080 =head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1081
1082 The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1083 to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1084 program when the user enters quit:
1085
1086 use AnyEvent;
1087
1088 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1089
1090 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1091 fh => \*STDIN,
1092 poll => 'r',
1093 cb => sub {
1094 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
1095 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
1096 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
1097 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1098 },
1099 );
1100
1101 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
1102
1103 sub new_timer {
1104 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
1105 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
1106 &new_timer; # and restart the time
1107 });
1108 }
1109
1110 new_timer; # create first timer
1111
1112 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1113
1114 =head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
1115
1116 Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
1117 API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
1118
1119 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
1120
1121 my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
1122 $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
1123 my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
1124
1125 The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
1126 given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
1127
1128 sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
1129
1130 And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
1131 L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
1132
1133 More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
1134 (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
1135
1136 my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
1137
1138 It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
1139 of the request:
1140
1141 $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
1142
1143 It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
1144
1145 socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
1146 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
1147 connect $txn->{fh}, ...
1148 and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
1149 and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
1150 and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
1151
1152 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1153 or the connection succeeds:
1154
1155 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
1156
1157 And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
1158 called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
1159 writing.
1160
1161 The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
1162 request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
1163 data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
1164 this example:
1165
1166 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
1167 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
1168 or die "connection or write error";
1169 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
1170
1171 Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
1172 result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
1173
1174 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1175
1176 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1177 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1178 $txn->{finished}->send;
1179 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1180 }
1181
1182 The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
1183 request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
1184 data:
1185
1186 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1187 return $txn->{result};
1188
1189 The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1190 that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1191 whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1192 and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
1193 problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
1194 random callback.
1195
1196 All of this enables the following usage styles:
1197
1198 1. Blocking:
1199
1200 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
1201
1202 2. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1203
1204 my @datas = map $_->result,
1205 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
1206 @urls;
1207
1208 Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
1209 anything about events.
1210
1211 3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1212
1213 use EV;
1214
1215 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1216 my $txn = shift;
1217 my $data = $txn->result;
1218 ...
1219 });
1220
1221 EV::loop;
1222
1223 3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
1224
1225 use AnyEvent;
1226
1227 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
1228
1229 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1230 ...
1231 $quit->send;
1232 });
1233
1234 $quit->recv;
1235
1236
1237 =head1 BENCHMARKS
1238
1239 To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1240 over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1241 of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1242
1243 =head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1244
1245 Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1246 through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1247 timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1248 which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1249
1250 Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1251 distribution.
1252
1253 =head3 Explanation of the columns
1254
1255 I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1256 different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1257 loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1258 and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1259 would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1260 of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1261
1262 I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1263 RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1264 and Perl-based overheads.
1265
1266 I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1267 takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1268 all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1269 and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1270
1271 I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1272 callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1273 invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1274 signal the end of this phase.
1275
1276 I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1277 watcher.
1278
1279 =head3 Results
1280
1281 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1282 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1283 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1284 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1285 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1286 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1287 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1288 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1289 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1290 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1291 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1292
1293 =head3 Discussion
1294
1295 The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1296 well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1297 can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1298 file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1299 the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1300 boost.
1301
1302 Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1303 overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1304 the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1305 higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1306
1307 To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1308 benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1309 EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1310 cycles with POE.
1311
1312 C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1313 maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1314 far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1315 natively.
1316
1317 The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1318 constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1319 interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1320 adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1321 performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1322 them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1323
1324 The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1325 cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1326
1327 C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1328 faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1329 C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1330 watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1331 making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1332 (note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1333 inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1334
1335 The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1336 more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1337 precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1338 file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1339 employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1340 hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1341 above).
1342
1343 C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1344 select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1345 be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1346 memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1347 as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1348 requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1349 invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1350 implementation.
1351
1352 The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1353 for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1354 small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1355 optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1356 using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1357 memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1358 design).
1359
1360 =head3 Summary
1361
1362 =over 4
1363
1364 =item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1365 (even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1366 performance with or without AnyEvent.
1367
1368 =item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1369 the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1370 adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1371
1372 =item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1373 reasonable memory usage.
1374
1375 =back
1376
1377 =head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1378
1379 This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1380 creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1381 timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1382 watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1383 watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1384
1385 The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1386 are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1387 fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1388 timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1389 most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1390
1391 In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1392 (1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1393 connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1394
1395 Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1396 distribution.
1397
1398 =head3 Explanation of the columns
1399
1400 I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1401 each server has a read and write socket end).
1402
1403 I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1404 nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1405
1406 I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1407 single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1408 it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1409 a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1410
1411 =head3 Results
1412
1413 name sockets create request
1414 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1415 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1416 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1417 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1418 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1419
1420 =head3 Discussion
1421
1422 This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1423 particular event loop.
1424
1425 EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1426 is relatively high, though.
1427
1428 Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1429 loops Event and Glib.
1430
1431 Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1432 understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1433 the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1434 uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1435
1436 Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1437 clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1438
1439 POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1440 as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1441 it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1442
1443 =head3 Summary
1444
1445 =over 4
1446
1447 =item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1448
1449 =item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1450
1451 =back
1452
1453 =head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1454
1455 While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1456 large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1457 I/O watchers.
1458
1459 In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1460 case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1461 one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1462 well.
1463
1464 The columns are identical to the previous table.
1465
1466 =head3 Results
1467
1468 name sockets create request
1469 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1470 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1471 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1472 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1473 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1474
1475 =head3 Discussion
1476
1477 The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1478 server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1479 in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1480 to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1481 speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1482 them).
1483
1484 EV is again fastest.
1485
1486 Perl again comes second. It is noticably faster than the C-based event
1487 loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1488 matter.
1489
1490 POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1491 others.
1492
1493 =head3 Summary
1494
1495 =over 4
1496
1497 =item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1498 watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1499
1500 =back
1501
1502
1503 =head1 FORK
1504
1505 Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1506 because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1507 calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1508
1509 If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1510 watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1511
1512
1513 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1514
1515 AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1516 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1517 execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1518 make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1519 will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1520 specified in the variable.
1521
1522 You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1523 before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1524
1525 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1526
1527 use AnyEvent;
1528
1529 Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1530 be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1531 probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL).
1532
1533
1534 =head1 SEE ALSO
1535
1536 Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1537
1538 Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1539 L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
1540
1541 Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1542 L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1543 L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1544 L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1545
1546 Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1547 servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1548
1549 Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1550
1551 Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1552
1553 Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1554
1555
1556 =head1 AUTHOR
1557
1558 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1559 http://home.schmorp.de/
1560
1561 =cut
1562
1563 1
1564