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1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - ??? 3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4
5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
4 6
5=head1 SYNOPSIS 7=head1 SYNOPSIS
6 8
9 use AnyEvent;
10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub { ... });
12
13 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { ... });
14 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, interval => $seconds, cb => ...
15
16 print AnyEvent->now; # prints current event loop time
17 print AnyEvent->time; # think Time::HiRes::time or simply CORE::time.
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "TERM", cb => sub { ... });
20
21 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
22 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
23 ...
24 });
25
26 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
27 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
28 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
29 # use a condvar in callback mode:
30 $w->cb (sub { $_[0]->recv });
31
32=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
33
34This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
35in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
36L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
37
38=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
39
40Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
41nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
42
43Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
44policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
45
46First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
47interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use, in a
48pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
49the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
50only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
51cannot change this, but it can hide the differences between those event
52loops.
53
54The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
55programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
56religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
57module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
58model you use.
59
60For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
61actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
62like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
63cannot use anything else, as they are simply incompatible to everything
64that isn't them. What's worse, all the potential users of your
65module are I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
66
67AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
68fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
69with the rest: POE + IO::Async? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if
70your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
71too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
72event models it supports (including stuff like IO::Async, as long as those
73use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new event loops
74to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
75
76In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
77model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
78modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
79follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
80offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
81technically possible.
82
83Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
84of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
85non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
86such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
87platform bugs and differences.
88
89Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
90useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
91model, you should I<not> use this module.
92
7=head1 DESCRIPTION 93=head1 DESCRIPTION
8 94
95L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
96allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
97users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
98peacefully at any one time).
99
100The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
101module.
102
103During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
104to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
105following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
106L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
107L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
108to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
109adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
110be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
111found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
112very efficient, but should work everywhere.
113
114Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
115an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
116that model the default. For example:
117
118 use Tk;
119 use AnyEvent;
120
121 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
122
123The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
124starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
125use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
126
127The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
128C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
129explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
130
131=head1 WATCHERS
132
133AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
134stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
135the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
136
137These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
138creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
139callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
140is in control).
141
142To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
143variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
144to it).
145
146All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
147
148Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
149example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
150
151An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
152
153 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
154 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
155 undef $w;
156 });
157
158Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
159my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
160declared.
161
162=head2 I/O WATCHERS
163
164You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
165with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
166
167C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch for events
168(AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file handle). C<poll>
169must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a watcher
170waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively. C<cb> is the
171callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
172
173Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
174presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
175callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
176
177The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
178You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
179underlying file descriptor.
180
181Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
182always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
183handles.
184
185Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
186watcher.
187
188 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
189 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
190 warn "read: $input\n";
191 undef $w;
192 });
193
194=head2 TIME WATCHERS
195
196You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
197method with the following mandatory arguments:
198
199C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
200supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
201in that case.
202
203Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
204presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
205callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
206
207The callback will normally be invoked once only. If you specify another
208parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
209callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
210seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
211false value, then it is treated as if it were missing.
212
213The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
214attempt is done to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
215only approximate.
216
217Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
218
219 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
220 warn "timeout\n";
221 });
222
223 # to cancel the timer:
224 undef $w;
225
226Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
227
228 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
229 warn "timeout\n";
230 };
231
232=head3 TIMING ISSUES
233
234There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
235in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
236o'clock").
237
238While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
239use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
240"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
241the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
242fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
243
244AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
245about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
246on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
247timers.
248
249AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
250AnyEvent API.
251
252AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
253
9=over 4 254=over 4
10 255
256=item AnyEvent->time
257
258This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
259seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
260return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
261
262It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
263will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
264
265=item AnyEvent->now
266
267This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
268this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
269the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
270time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
271
272I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
273function to call when you want to know the current time.>
274
275This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
276thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
277L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update it's activity timeouts).
278
279The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
280with your timing, you can skip it without bad conscience.
281
282For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
283and L<EV> and the following set-up:
284
285The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callback at
286time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
287you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
288second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
289after three seconds.
290
291With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
292both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
293be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
294
295With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
296time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
297last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
298to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
299
300In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
301regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
302callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
303higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
304
305In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
306the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
307
308In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
309can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
310difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
311account.
312
313=back
314
315=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
316
317You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
318I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
319callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
320
321Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
322presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
323callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
324
325Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
326invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
327that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
328but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
329
330The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
331between multiple watchers.
332
333This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
334directly will likely not work correctly.
335
336Example: exit on SIGINT
337
338 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
339
340=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
341
342You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
343
344The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
345watches for any child process exit). The watcher will triggered only when
346the child process has finished and an exit status is available, not on
347any trace events (stopped/continued).
348
349The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
350waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
351callback arguments.
352
353This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
354and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
355random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
356C<system>, is just fine).
357
358There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
359I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
360have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
361
362Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
363event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
364loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
365
366This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
367AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
368C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
369
370Example: fork a process and wait for it
371
372 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
373
374 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
375
376 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
377 pid => $pid,
378 cb => sub {
379 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
380 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
381 $done->send;
382 },
383 );
384
385 # do something else, then wait for process exit
386 $done->recv;
387
388=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
389
390If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
391require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
392will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
393
394AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
395will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
396
397The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
398because they represent a condition that must become true.
399
400Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
401>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
402
403C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
404becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
405the results).
406
407After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
408by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
409were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
410->send >> method).
411
412Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
413optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
414in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
415another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
416used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
417a result.
418
419Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
420for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
421then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
422availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
423called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
424
425You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
426you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
427could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
428button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
429
430Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
431two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
432lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
433you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
434as this asks for trouble.
435
436Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
437used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
438easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
439AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
440it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
441
442There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
443eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
444for the send to occur.
445
446Example: wait for a timer.
447
448 # wait till the result is ready
449 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
450
451 # do something such as adding a timer
452 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
453 # when the "result" is ready.
454 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
455 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
456 after => 1,
457 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
458 );
459
460 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
461 # calls send
462 $result_ready->recv;
463
464Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that
465condition variables are also code references.
466
467 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
468 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
469 $done->recv;
470
471Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
472callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
473the main program:
474
475 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
476
477 ...
478
479 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
480
481And this is how you would just ste a callback to be called whenever the
482results are available:
483
484 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
485 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
486 });
487
488=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
489
490These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
491code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
492the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
493uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
494
495=over 4
496
497=item $cv->send (...)
498
499Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
500calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
501called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
502
503If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
504immediately from within send.
505
506Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
507future C<< ->recv >> calls.
508
509Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly
510(as a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
511C<send>. Note, however, that many C-based event loops do not handle
512overloading, so as tempting as it may be, passing a condition variable
513instead of a callback does not work. Both the pure perl and EV loops
514support overloading, however, as well as all functions that use perl to
515invoke a callback (as in L<AnyEvent::Socket> and L<AnyEvent::DNS> for
516example).
517
518=item $cv->croak ($error)
519
520Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
521C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
522
523This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
524user/consumer.
525
526=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
527
528=item $cv->end
529
530These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
531
532These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
533one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
534to use a condition variable for the whole process.
535
536Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
537C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
538>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
539is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
540callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
541
542Let's clarify this with the ping example:
543
544 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
545
546 my %result;
547 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
548
549 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
550 $cv->begin;
551 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
552 $result{$host} = ...;
553 $cv->end;
554 };
555 }
556
557 $cv->end;
558
559This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
560C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
561order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
562each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
563it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
564results arrive is not relevant.
565
566There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
567loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
568to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
569C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
570doesn't execute once).
571
572This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
573use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
574is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
575C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
576
577=back
578
579=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
580
581These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
582code awaits the condition.
583
584=over 4
585
586=item $cv->recv
587
588Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
589>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
590normally.
591
592You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
593will return immediately.
594
595If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
596function will call C<croak>.
597
598In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
599in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
600
601Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
602(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
603using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
604caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
605condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
606callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
607while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
608
609Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
610sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
611multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
612can supply.
613
614The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
615fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
616versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
617C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
618coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
619
620You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
621only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
622time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
623waits otherwise.
624
625=item $bool = $cv->ready
626
627Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
628C<croak> have been called.
629
630=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
631
632This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
633replaces it before doing so.
634
635The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
636C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the condition
637variable itself. Calling C<recv> inside the callback or at any later time
638is guaranteed not to block.
639
640=back
641
642=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
643
644=over 4
645
646=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
647
648Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
649contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
650Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
651C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
652AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
653
654The known classes so far are:
655
656 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
657 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
658 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
659 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
660 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
661 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
662 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
663 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
664
665There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
666watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
667POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
668second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
669AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
670it's adaptor.
671
672AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
673autodetecting them.
674
675=item AnyEvent::detect
676
677Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
678if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
679have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
680runtime.
681
682=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
683
684Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
685autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
686
687If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
688that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
689L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
690
691=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
692
693If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
694before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
695the event loop has been chosen.
696
697You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
698if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
699and the array will be ignored.
700
701Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
702
703=back
704
705=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
706
707As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
708freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
709
710Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
711decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
712by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
713to load the event module first.
714
715Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
716the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
717because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
718events is to stay interactive.
719
720It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
721requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
722called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
723freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
724
725=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
726
727There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
728dictate which event model to use.
729
730If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
731do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
732decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
733
734If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
735Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
736event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
737speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
738modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
739decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
740might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
741
742You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
743C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
744everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
745
746=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
747
748Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
749only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
750
751In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
752
753 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
754
755This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
756
757Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
758it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
759variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
760exit cleanly.
761
762
763=head1 OTHER MODULES
764
765The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
766AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
767in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
768available via CPAN.
769
770=over 4
771
772=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
773
774Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
775functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
776
777=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
778
779Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
780addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
781connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
782
783=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
784
785Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
786supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
787non-blocking SSL/TLS.
788
789=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
790
791Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
792
793=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
794
795A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
796HTTP requests.
797
798=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
799
800Provides a simple web application server framework.
801
802=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
803
804The fastest ping in the west.
805
806=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
807
808Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
809
810=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
811
812Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
813programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
814together.
815
816=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
817
818Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
819L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
820
821=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
822
823A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
824
825=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
826
827A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
828L<App::IGS>).
829
830=item L<Net::IRC3>
831
832AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
833
834=item L<Net::XMPP2>
835
836AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
837
838=item L<Net::FCP>
839
840AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
841of AnyEvent.
842
843=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
844
845High level API for event-based execution flow control.
846
847=item L<Coro>
848
849Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
850
851=item L<IO::Lambda>
852
853The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
854
855=back
856
11=cut 857=cut
12 858
13package AnyEvent; 859package AnyEvent;
14 860
861no warnings;
862use strict qw(vars subs);
863
15use Carp; 864use Carp;
16 865
17$VERSION = 0.1; 866our $VERSION = 4.234;
867our $MODEL;
18 868
19no warnings; 869our $AUTOLOAD;
870our @ISA;
871
872our @REGISTRY;
873
874our $WIN32;
875
876BEGIN {
877 my $win32 = ! ! ($^O =~ /mswin32/i);
878 eval "sub WIN32(){ $win32 }";
879}
880
881our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
882
883our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
884
885{
886 my $idx;
887 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
888 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
889 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
890}
20 891
21my @models = ( 892my @models = (
22 [Coro => Coro::Event::], 893 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
23 [Event => Event::], 894 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
24 [Glib => Glib::], 895 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
25 [Tk => Tk::], 896 # everything below here will not be autoprobed
897 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
898 # and is usually faster
899 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
900 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
901 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
902 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
903 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
904 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
905 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
26); 906);
27 907
908our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer time now signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
909
910our @post_detect;
911
912sub post_detect(&) {
913 my ($cb) = @_;
914
915 if ($MODEL) {
916 $cb->();
917
918 1
919 } else {
920 push @post_detect, $cb;
921
922 defined wantarray
923 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
924 : ()
925 }
926}
927
928sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
929 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
930}
931
932sub detect() {
933 unless ($MODEL) {
934 no strict 'refs';
935 local $SIG{__DIE__};
936
937 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
938 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
939 if (eval "require $model") {
940 $MODEL = $model;
941 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
942 } else {
943 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
944 }
945 }
946
947 # check for already loaded models
948 unless ($MODEL) {
949 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
950 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
951 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
952 if (eval "require $model") {
953 $MODEL = $model;
954 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
955 last;
956 }
957 }
958 }
959
960 unless ($MODEL) {
961 # try to load a model
962
963 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
964 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
965 if (eval "require $package"
966 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
967 and eval "require $model") {
968 $MODEL = $model;
969 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
970 last;
971 }
972 }
973
974 $MODEL
975 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
976 }
977 }
978
979 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
980
981 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
982
983 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
984
985 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
986 }
987
988 $MODEL
989}
990
28sub AUTOLOAD { 991sub AUTOLOAD {
29 $AUTOLOAD =~ s/.*://; 992 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
30 993
31 for (@models) { 994 $method{$func}
32 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 995 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
33 if (defined ${"$package\::VERSION"}) { 996
34 $EVENT = "AnyEvent::Impl::$model"; 997 detect unless $MODEL;
35 eval "require $EVENT"; die if $@; 998
36 goto &{"$EVENT\::$AUTOLOAD"}; 999 my $class = shift;
37 } 1000 $class->$func (@_);
1001}
1002
1003# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1004# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1005# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1006sub _dupfh($$$$) {
1007 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1008
1009 require Fcntl;
1010
1011 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1012 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<")
1013 : $poll eq "w" ? ($w, ">")
1014 : Carp::croak "AnyEvent->io requires poll set to either 'r' or 'w'";
1015
1016 open my $fh2, "$mode&" . fileno $fh
1017 or die "cannot dup() filehandle: $!";
1018
1019 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1020
1021 ($fh2, $rw)
1022}
1023
1024package AnyEvent::Base;
1025
1026# default implementation for now and time
1027
1028BEGIN {
1029 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); time (); 1") {
1030 *_time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1031 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1032 } else {
1033 *_time = sub { time }; # epic fail
38 } 1034 }
1035}
39 1036
40 for (@models) { 1037sub time { _time }
41 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 1038sub now { _time }
42 $EVENT = "AnyEvent::Impl::$model"; 1039
43 if (eval "require $EVENT") { 1040# default implementation for ->condvar
44 goto &{"$EVENT\::$AUTOLOAD"}; 1041
45 } 1042sub condvar {
1043 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
1044}
1045
1046# default implementation for ->signal
1047
1048our %SIG_CB;
1049
1050sub signal {
1051 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1052
1053 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
1054 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
1055
1056 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1057 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
1058 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
1059 };
1060
1061 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
1062}
1063
1064sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
1065 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1066
1067 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1068
1069 delete $SIG{$signal} unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1070}
1071
1072# default implementation for ->child
1073
1074our %PID_CB;
1075our $CHLD_W;
1076our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1077our $PID_IDLE;
1078our $WNOHANG;
1079
1080sub _child_wait {
1081 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
1082 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
1083 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
46 } 1084 }
47 1085
48 die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any of these: Coro, Event, Glib or Tk."; 1086 undef $PID_IDLE;
49} 1087}
50 1088
511; 1089sub _sigchld {
1090 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
1091 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
1092 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1093 &_child_wait;
1094 });
1095}
52 1096
1097sub child {
1098 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1099
1100 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
1101 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
1102
1103 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1104
1105 unless ($WNOHANG) {
1106 $WNOHANG = eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
1107 }
1108
1109 unless ($CHLD_W) {
1110 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
1111 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1112 &_sigchld;
1113 }
1114
1115 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
1116}
1117
1118sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
1119 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1120
1121 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
1122 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
1123
1124 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1125}
1126
1127package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1128
1129our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1130
1131package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1132
1133use overload
1134 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1135 fallback => 1;
1136
1137sub _send {
1138 # nop
1139}
1140
1141sub send {
1142 my $cv = shift;
1143 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1144 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1145 $cv->_send;
1146}
1147
1148sub croak {
1149 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1150 $_[0]->send;
1151}
1152
1153sub ready {
1154 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1155}
1156
1157sub _wait {
1158 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1159}
1160
1161sub recv {
1162 $_[0]->_wait;
1163
1164 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1165 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1166}
1167
1168sub cb {
1169 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1170 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
1171}
1172
1173sub begin {
1174 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1175 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1176}
1177
1178sub end {
1179 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1180 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1181}
1182
1183# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1184*broadcast = \&send;
1185*wait = \&_wait;
1186
1187=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1188
1189In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1190caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1191the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1192checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1193development.
1194
1195As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1196executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1197also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1198program.
1199
1200The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1201within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1202$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1203so on.
1204
1205=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1206
1207The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1208submodules:
1209
1210=over 4
1211
1212=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1213
1214By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1215conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1216talkative.
1217
1218When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1219conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1220C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1221
1222When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1223model it chooses.
1224
1225=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1226
1227AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1228argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1229will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1230check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems
1231it will croak.
1232
1233In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1234
1235Unlike C<use strict>, it is definitely recommended ot keep it off in
1236production. Keeping C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while
1237developing programs can be very useful, however.
1238
1239=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1240
1241This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1242auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1243entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1244and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1245used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1246auto detection and -probing.
1247
1248This functionality might change in future versions.
1249
1250For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1251could start your program like this:
1252
1253 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1254
1255=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1256
1257Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1258for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1259of auto probing).
1260
1261Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1262current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1263used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1264list.
1265
1266This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1267against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1268small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1269
1270Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1271but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1272- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1273addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1274IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1275
1276=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1277
1278Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1279for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1280some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1281default.
1282
1283Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1284EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1285
1286=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1287
1288The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1289will create in parallel.
1290
1291=back
1292
1293=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1294
1295This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1296a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1297provide AnyEvent compatibility.
1298
1299If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
1300supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
1301pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
1302the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
1303C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
1304AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
1305
1306Example:
1307
1308 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1309
1310This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1311package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1312
1313When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1314will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1315C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1316
1317The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1318L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1319and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1320see the sources.
1321
1322If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1323provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1324
1325The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1326terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1327in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1328inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1329I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1330
1331I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1332condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1333C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1334not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1335
1336=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1337
1338The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1339to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1340program when the user enters quit:
1341
1342 use AnyEvent;
1343
1344 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1345
1346 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1347 fh => \*STDIN,
1348 poll => 'r',
1349 cb => sub {
1350 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
1351 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
1352 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
1353 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1354 },
1355 );
1356
1357 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
1358
1359 sub new_timer {
1360 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
1361 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
1362 &new_timer; # and restart the time
1363 });
1364 }
1365
1366 new_timer; # create first timer
1367
1368 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1369
1370=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
1371
1372Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
1373API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
1374
1375 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
1376
1377 my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
1378 $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
1379 my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
1380
1381The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
1382given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
1383
1384 sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
1385
1386And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
1387L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
1388
1389More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
1390(completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
1391
1392 my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
1393
1394It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
1395of the request:
1396
1397 $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
1398
1399It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
1400
1401 socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
1402 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
1403 connect $txn->{fh}, ...
1404 and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
1405 and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
1406 and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
1407
1408Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1409or the connection succeeds:
1410
1411 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
1412
1413And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
1414called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
1415writing.
1416
1417The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
1418request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
1419data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
1420this example:
1421
1422 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
1423 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
1424 or die "connection or write error";
1425 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
1426
1427Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
1428result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
1429
1430 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1431
1432 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1433 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1434 $txn->{finished}->send;
1435 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1436 }
1437
1438The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
1439request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
1440data:
1441
1442 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1443 return $txn->{result};
1444
1445The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1446that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1447whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1448and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
1449problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
1450random callback.
1451
1452All of this enables the following usage styles:
1453
14541. Blocking:
1455
1456 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
1457
14582. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1459
1460 my @datas = map $_->result,
1461 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
1462 @urls;
1463
1464Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
1465anything about events.
1466
14673a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1468
1469 use EV;
1470
1471 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1472 my $txn = shift;
1473 my $data = $txn->result;
1474 ...
1475 });
1476
1477 EV::loop;
1478
14793b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
1480
1481 use AnyEvent;
1482
1483 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
1484
1485 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1486 ...
1487 $quit->send;
1488 });
1489
1490 $quit->recv;
1491
1492
1493=head1 BENCHMARKS
1494
1495To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1496over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1497of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1498
1499=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1500
1501Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1502through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1503timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1504which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1505
1506Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1507distribution.
1508
1509=head3 Explanation of the columns
1510
1511I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1512different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1513loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1514and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1515would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1516of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1517
1518I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1519RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1520and Perl-based overheads.
1521
1522I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1523takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1524all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1525and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1526
1527I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1528callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1529invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1530signal the end of this phase.
1531
1532I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1533watcher.
1534
1535=head3 Results
1536
1537 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1538 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1539 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1540 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1541 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1542 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1543 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1544 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1545 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1546 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1547 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1548
1549=head3 Discussion
1550
1551The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1552well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1553can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1554file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1555the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1556boost.
1557
1558Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1559overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1560the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1561higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1562
1563To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1564benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1565EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1566cycles with POE.
1567
1568C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1569maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1570far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1571natively.
1572
1573The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1574constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1575interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1576adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1577performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1578them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1579
1580The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1581cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1582
1583C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1584faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1585C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1586watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1587making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1588(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1589inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1590
1591The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1592more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1593precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1594file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1595employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1596hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1597above).
1598
1599C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1600select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1601be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1602memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1603as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1604requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1605invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1606implementation.
1607
1608The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1609for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1610small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1611optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1612using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1613memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1614design).
1615
1616=head3 Summary
1617
1618=over 4
1619
1620=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1621(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1622performance with or without AnyEvent.
1623
1624=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1625the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1626adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1627
1628=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1629reasonable memory usage.
1630
1631=back
1632
1633=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1634
1635This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1636creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1637timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1638watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1639watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1640
1641The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1642are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1643fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1644timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1645most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1646
1647In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1648(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1649connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1650
1651Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1652distribution.
1653
1654=head3 Explanation of the columns
1655
1656I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1657each server has a read and write socket end).
1658
1659I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1660nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1661
1662I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1663single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1664it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1665a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1666
1667=head3 Results
1668
1669 name sockets create request
1670 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1671 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1672 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1673 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1674 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1675
1676=head3 Discussion
1677
1678This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1679particular event loop.
1680
1681EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1682is relatively high, though.
1683
1684Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1685loops Event and Glib.
1686
1687Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1688understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1689the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1690uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1691
1692Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1693clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1694
1695POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1696as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1697it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1698
1699=head3 Summary
1700
1701=over 4
1702
1703=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1704
1705=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1706
1707=back
1708
1709=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1710
1711While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1712large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1713I/O watchers.
1714
1715In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1716case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1717one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1718well.
1719
1720The columns are identical to the previous table.
1721
1722=head3 Results
1723
1724 name sockets create request
1725 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1726 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1727 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1728 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1729 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1730
1731=head3 Discussion
1732
1733The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1734server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1735in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1736to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1737speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1738them).
1739
1740EV is again fastest.
1741
1742Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1743loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1744matter.
1745
1746POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1747others.
1748
1749=head3 Summary
1750
1751=over 4
1752
1753=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1754watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1755
1756=back
1757
1758
1759=head1 FORK
1760
1761Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1762because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1763calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1764
1765If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1766watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1767
1768
1769=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1770
1771AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1772$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1773execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1774make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1775will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1776specified in the variable.
1777
1778You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1779before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1780
1781 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1782
1783 use AnyEvent;
1784
1785Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1786be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1787probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
1788$ENV{PERL_ANYEGENT_STRICT}.
1789
1790
1791=head1 BUGS
1792
1793Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
1794to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
1795and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
1796mamleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
1797pronounced).
1798
1799
1800=head1 SEE ALSO
1801
1802Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1803
1804Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1805L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
1806
1807Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1808L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1809L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1810L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1811
1812Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1813servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1814
1815Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1816
1817Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1818
1819Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1820
1821
1822=head1 AUTHOR
1823
1824 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1825 http://home.schmorp.de/
1826
1827=cut
1828
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