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Revision 1.35 by root, Wed Nov 14 23:24:16 2007 UTC vs.
Revision 1.180 by root, Sat Sep 6 07:00:45 2008 UTC

1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops 3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4 4
5Event, Coro, Glib, Tk, Perl - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6 6
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 7=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 8
9 use AnyEvent; 9 use AnyEvent;
10 10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub { 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) = @_;
12 ... 23 ...
13 }); 24 });
14 25
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 ...
17 });
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores wether a condition was flagged 26 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
27 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
20 $w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast 28 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
21 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's 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.
22 92
23=head1 DESCRIPTION 93=head1 DESCRIPTION
24 94
25L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 95L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
26allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module 96allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
27users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist 97users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
28peacefully at any one time). 98peacefully at any one time).
29 99
30The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 100The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
31module. 101module.
32 102
33On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 103During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
34loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 104to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
35loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 105following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
36used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 106L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
37order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 107L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
38used. If still none could be found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl 108to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
39event loop, which is also not very efficient. 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.
40 113
41Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading 114Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
42an Event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make 115an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
43that model the default. For example: 116that model the default. For example:
44 117
45 use Tk; 118 use Tk;
46 use AnyEvent; 119 use AnyEvent;
47 120
48 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk 121 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
49 122
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
50The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called 127The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
51C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it 128C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
52explicitly. 129explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
53 130
54=head1 WATCHERS 131=head1 WATCHERS
55 132
56AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that 133AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
57stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as 134stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
58the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc. 135the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
59 136
60These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After 137These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
61creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke 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
62the callback. To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by 142To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
63setting the variable that stores it to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all 143variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
64references to it). 144to it).
65 145
66All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class. 146All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
67 147
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
68=head2 IO WATCHERS 162=head2 I/O WATCHERS
69 163
70You can create I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method with 164You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
71the following mandatory arguments: 165with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
72 166
73C<fh> the Perl I<filehandle> (not filedescriptor) to watch for 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>
74events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, that creates 169must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a watcher
75a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events. C<cb> teh callback 170waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively. C<cb> is the
76to invoke everytime the filehandle becomes ready. 171callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
77 172
78Only one io watcher per C<fh> and C<poll> combination is allowed (i.e. on 173Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
79a socket you can have one r + one w, not any more (limitation comes from 174presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
80Tk - if you are sure you are not using Tk this limitation is gone). 175callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
81 176
82Filehandles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the 177The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
83filehandle exists, too. 178You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
179underlying file descriptor.
84 180
85Example: 181Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
182always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
183handles.
86 184
87 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher 185Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
186watcher.
187
88 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 188 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
89 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); 189 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
90 warn "read: $input\n"; 190 warn "read: $input\n";
91 undef $w; 191 undef $w;
92 }); 192 });
94=head2 TIME WATCHERS 194=head2 TIME WATCHERS
95 195
96You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >> 196You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
97method with the following mandatory arguments: 197method with the following mandatory arguments:
98 198
99C<after> after how many seconds (fractions are supported) should the timer 199C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
100activate. C<cb> the callback to invoke. 200supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
201in that case.
101 202
102The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating 203Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
103timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk 204presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
104and Glib). 205callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
105 206
106Example: 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.
107 212
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
108 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds 217Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
218
109 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub { 219 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
110 warn "timeout\n"; 220 warn "timeout\n";
111 }); 221 });
112 222
113 # to cancel the timer: 223 # to cancel the timer:
114 undef $w 224 undef $w;
115 225
116=head2 CONDITION WATCHERS 226Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
117 227
118Condition watchers can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >> 228 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
119method without any arguments. 229 warn "timeout\n";
230 };
120 231
121A condition watcher watches for a condition - precisely that the C<< 232=head3 TIMING ISSUES
122->broadcast >> method has been called.
123 233
124The watcher has only two methods: 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":
125 253
126=over 4 254=over 4
127 255
128=item $cv->wait 256=item AnyEvent->time
129 257
130Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been 258This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
131called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally. 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).
132 261
133Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case, so 262It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
134if you are using this from a module, never require a blocking wait, but 263will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
135let the caller decide wether the call will block or not (for example,
136by coupling condition variables with some kind of request results and
137supporting callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not
138block, while still suppporting blockign waits if the caller so desires).
139 264
140You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return 265=item AnyEvent->now
141immediately.
142 266
143=item $cv->broadcast 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.
144 271
145Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->wait >> and all further 272I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
146calls to C<wait> will return after this method has been called. If nobody 273function to call when you want to know the current time.>
147is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
148 274
149Example: 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 trigger as often
346as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
347signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
348and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
349you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
350
351There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
352I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
353have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
354
355Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
356event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
357loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
358
359This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
360AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
361C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
362
363Example: fork a process and wait for it
364
365 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
366
367 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
368
369 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
370 pid => $pid,
371 cb => sub {
372 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
373 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
374 $done->send;
375 },
376 );
377
378 # do something else, then wait for process exit
379 $done->recv;
380
381=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
382
383If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
384require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
385will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
386
387AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
388will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
389
390The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
391because they represent a condition that must become true.
392
393Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
394>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
395
396C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
397becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
398the results).
399
400After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
401by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
402were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
403->send >> method).
404
405Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
406optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
407in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
408another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
409used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
410a result.
411
412Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
413for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
414then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
415availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
416called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
417
418You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
419you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
420could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
421button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
422
423Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
424two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
425lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
426you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
427as this asks for trouble.
428
429Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
430used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
431easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
432AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
433it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
434
435There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
436eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
437for the send to occur.
438
439Example: wait for a timer.
150 440
151 # wait till the result is ready 441 # wait till the result is ready
152 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar; 442 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
153 443
154 # do something such as adding a timer 444 # do something such as adding a timer
155 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast 445 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
156 # when the "result" is ready. 446 # when the "result" is ready.
447 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
448 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
449 after => 1,
450 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
451 );
157 452
453 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
454 # calls send
158 $result_ready->wait; 455 $result_ready->recv;
456
457Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that
458condition variables are also code references.
459
460 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
461 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
462 $done->recv;
463
464Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
465callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
466the main program:
467
468 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
469
470 ...
471
472 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
473
474And this is how you would just ste a callback to be called whenever the
475results are available:
476
477 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
478 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
479 });
480
481=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
482
483These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
484code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
485the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
486uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
487
488=over 4
489
490=item $cv->send (...)
491
492Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
493calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
494called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
495
496If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
497immediately from within send.
498
499Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
500future C<< ->recv >> calls.
501
502Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly
503(as a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
504C<send>. Note, however, that many C-based event loops do not handle
505overloading, so as tempting as it may be, passing a condition variable
506instead of a callback does not work. Both the pure perl and EV loops
507support overloading, however, as well as all functions that use perl to
508invoke a callback (as in L<AnyEvent::Socket> and L<AnyEvent::DNS> for
509example).
510
511=item $cv->croak ($error)
512
513Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
514C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
515
516This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
517user/consumer.
518
519=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
520
521=item $cv->end
522
523These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
524
525These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
526one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
527to use a condition variable for the whole process.
528
529Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
530C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
531>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
532is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
533callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
534
535Let's clarify this with the ping example:
536
537 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
538
539 my %result;
540 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
541
542 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
543 $cv->begin;
544 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
545 $result{$host} = ...;
546 $cv->end;
547 };
548 }
549
550 $cv->end;
551
552This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
553C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
554order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
555each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
556it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
557results arrive is not relevant.
558
559There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
560loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
561to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
562C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
563doesn't execute once).
564
565This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
566use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
567is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
568C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
159 569
160=back 570=back
161 571
162=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS 572=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
163 573
164You can listen for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal 574These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
165I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix. Multiple signals events can be clumped 575code awaits the condition.
166together into one callback invocation, and callback invocation might or
167might not be asynchronous.
168 576
169These watchers might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals 577=over 4
170directly will likely not work correctly.
171 578
172Example: exit on SIGINT 579=item $cv->recv
173 580
174 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 }); 581Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
582>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
583normally.
175 584
176=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS 585You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
586will return immediately.
177 587
178You can also listen for the status of a child process specified by the 588If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
179C<pid> argument (or any child if the pid argument is 0). The watcher will 589function will call C<croak>.
180trigger as often as status change for the child are received. This works
181by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with
182the pid and exit status (as returned by waitpid).
183 590
184Example: wait for pid 1333 591In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
592in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
185 593
186 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => 1333, cb => sub { warn "exit status $?" }); 594Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
595(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
596using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
597caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
598condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
599callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
600while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
187 601
188=head1 GLOBALS 602Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
603sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
604multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
605can supply.
606
607The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
608fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
609versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
610C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
611coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
612
613You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
614only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
615time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
616waits otherwise.
617
618=item $bool = $cv->ready
619
620Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
621C<croak> have been called.
622
623=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
624
625This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
626replaces it before doing so.
627
628The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
629C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the condition
630variable itself. Calling C<recv> inside the callback or at any later time
631is guaranteed not to block.
632
633=back
634
635=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
189 636
190=over 4 637=over 4
191 638
192=item $AnyEvent::MODEL 639=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
193 640
197C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case 644C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
198AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>). 645AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
199 646
200The known classes so far are: 647The known classes so far are:
201 648
202 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.
203 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, also best choice). 649 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
204 AnyEvent::Impl::Coro based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
205 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also second best choice :) 650 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
651 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
206 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, second-best choice. 652 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
207 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice. 653 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
208 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient. 654 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
655 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
656 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
657
658There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
659watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
660POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
661second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
662AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
663it's adaptor.
664
665AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
666autodetecting them.
209 667
210=item AnyEvent::detect 668=item AnyEvent::detect
211 669
212Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model if 670Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
213necessary. You should only call this function right before you would have 671if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
214created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, very late at runtime. 672have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
673runtime.
674
675=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
676
677Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
678autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
679
680If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
681that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
682L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
683
684=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
685
686If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
687before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
688the event loop has been chosen.
689
690You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
691if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
692and the array will be ignored.
693
694Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
215 695
216=back 696=back
217 697
218=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE 698=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
219 699
220As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods 700As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
221freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it. 701freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
222 702
223Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will 703Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
224decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so 704decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
225by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module 705by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
226to load the event module first. 706to load the event module first.
227 707
708Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
709the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
710because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
711events is to stay interactive.
712
713It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
714requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
715called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
716freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
717
228=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM 718=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
229 719
230There will always be a single main program - the only place that should 720There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
231dictate which event model to use. 721dictate which event model to use.
232 722
233If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not 723If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
234do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to chose. 724do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
725decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
235 726
236If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in Gtk2 727If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
237programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you should load 728Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
238it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it, generally, as early 729event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
239as possible. The reason is that modules might create watchers when they 730speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
240are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event model to use as soon as 731modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
241it creates watchers, and it might chose the wrong one unless you load the 732decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
242correct one yourself. 733might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
243 734
244You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by 735You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
245loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, but letting AnyEvent chose is 736C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
246generally better. 737everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
738
739=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
740
741Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
742only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
743
744In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
745
746 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
747
748This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
749
750Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
751it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
752variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
753exit cleanly.
754
755
756=head1 OTHER MODULES
757
758The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
759AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
760in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
761available via CPAN.
762
763=over 4
764
765=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
766
767Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
768functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
769
770=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
771
772Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
773addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
774connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
775
776=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
777
778Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
779supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
780non-blocking SSL/TLS.
781
782=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
783
784Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
785
786=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
787
788A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
789HTTP requests.
790
791=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
792
793Provides a simple web application server framework.
794
795=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
796
797The fastest ping in the west.
798
799=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
800
801Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
802
803=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
804
805Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
806programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
807together.
808
809=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
810
811Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
812L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
813
814=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
815
816A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
817
818=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
819
820A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
821L<App::IGS>).
822
823=item L<Net::IRC3>
824
825AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
826
827=item L<Net::XMPP2>
828
829AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
830
831=item L<Net::FCP>
832
833AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
834of AnyEvent.
835
836=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
837
838High level API for event-based execution flow control.
839
840=item L<Coro>
841
842Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
843
844=item L<IO::Lambda>
845
846The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
847
848=back
247 849
248=cut 850=cut
249 851
250package AnyEvent; 852package AnyEvent;
251 853
252no warnings; 854no warnings;
253use strict; 855use strict qw(vars subs);
254 856
255use Carp; 857use Carp;
256 858
257our $VERSION = '2.6'; 859our $VERSION = 4.233;
258our $MODEL; 860our $MODEL;
259 861
260our $AUTOLOAD; 862our $AUTOLOAD;
261our @ISA; 863our @ISA;
262 864
865our @REGISTRY;
866
867our $WIN32;
868
869BEGIN {
870 my $win32 = ! ! ($^O =~ /mswin32/i);
871 eval "sub WIN32(){ $win32 }";
872}
873
263our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1; 874our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
264 875
265our @REGISTRY; 876our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
877
878{
879 my $idx;
880 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
881 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
882 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
883}
266 884
267my @models = ( 885my @models = (
268 [Coro::EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV::],
269 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::], 886 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
270 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Coro::],
271 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], 887 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
272 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
273 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
274 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::], 888 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
889 # everything below here will not be autoprobed
890 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
891 # and is usually faster
892 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
893 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
894 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
895 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
896 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
897 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
898 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
275); 899);
276 900
277our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait signal one_event DESTROY); 901our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer time now signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
902
903our @post_detect;
904
905sub post_detect(&) {
906 my ($cb) = @_;
907
908 if ($MODEL) {
909 $cb->();
910
911 1
912 } else {
913 push @post_detect, $cb;
914
915 defined wantarray
916 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
917 : ()
918 }
919}
920
921sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
922 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
923}
278 924
279sub detect() { 925sub detect() {
280 unless ($MODEL) { 926 unless ($MODEL) {
281 no strict 'refs'; 927 no strict 'refs';
928 local $SIG{__DIE__};
929
930 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
931 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
932 if (eval "require $model") {
933 $MODEL = $model;
934 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
935 } else {
936 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
937 }
938 }
282 939
283 # check for already loaded models 940 # check for already loaded models
941 unless ($MODEL) {
284 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 942 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
285 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 943 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
286 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 944 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
287 if (eval "require $model") { 945 if (eval "require $model") {
288 $MODEL = $model; 946 $MODEL = $model;
289 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1; 947 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
290 last; 948 last;
949 }
291 } 950 }
292 } 951 }
952
953 unless ($MODEL) {
954 # try to load a model
955
956 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
957 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
958 if (eval "require $package"
959 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
960 and eval "require $model") {
961 $MODEL = $model;
962 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
963 last;
964 }
965 }
966
967 $MODEL
968 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
969 }
293 } 970 }
294 971
295 unless ($MODEL) { 972 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
296 # try to load a model
297
298 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
299 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
300 if (eval "require $package"
301 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
302 and eval "require $model") {
303 $MODEL = $model;
304 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
305 last;
306 }
307 }
308
309 $MODEL
310 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV (or Coro+EV), Event (or Coro+Event), Glib or Tk.";
311 }
312 973
313 unshift @ISA, $MODEL; 974 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
314 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base"; 975
976 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
977
978 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
315 } 979 }
316 980
317 $MODEL 981 $MODEL
318} 982}
319 983
327 991
328 my $class = shift; 992 my $class = shift;
329 $class->$func (@_); 993 $class->$func (@_);
330} 994}
331 995
996# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
997# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
998# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
999sub _dupfh($$$$) {
1000 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1001
1002 require Fcntl;
1003
1004 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1005 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<")
1006 : $poll eq "w" ? ($w, ">")
1007 : Carp::croak "AnyEvent->io requires poll set to either 'r' or 'w'";
1008
1009 open my $fh2, "$mode&" . fileno $fh
1010 or die "cannot dup() filehandle: $!";
1011
1012 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1013
1014 ($fh2, $rw)
1015}
1016
332package AnyEvent::Base; 1017package AnyEvent::Base;
333 1018
1019# default implementation for now and time
1020
1021BEGIN {
1022 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); time (); 1") {
1023 *_time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1024 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1025 } else {
1026 *_time = \&CORE::time; # epic fail
1027 }
1028}
1029
1030sub time { _time }
1031sub now { _time }
1032
334# default implementation for ->condvar, ->wait, ->broadcast 1033# default implementation for ->condvar
335 1034
336sub condvar { 1035sub condvar {
337 bless \my $flag, "AnyEvent::Base::CondVar" 1036 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
338}
339
340sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::broadcast {
341 ${$_[0]}++;
342}
343
344sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::wait {
345 AnyEvent->one_event while !${$_[0]};
346} 1037}
347 1038
348# default implementation for ->signal 1039# default implementation for ->signal
349 1040
350our %SIG_CB; 1041our %SIG_CB;
366sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY { 1057sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
367 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]}; 1058 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
368 1059
369 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb}; 1060 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
370 1061
371 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} }; 1062 delete $SIG{$signal} unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
372} 1063}
373 1064
374# default implementation for ->child 1065# default implementation for ->child
375 1066
376our %PID_CB; 1067our %PID_CB;
377our $CHLD_W; 1068our $CHLD_W;
1069our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
378our $PID_IDLE; 1070our $PID_IDLE;
379our $WNOHANG; 1071our $WNOHANG;
380 1072
381sub _child_wait { 1073sub _child_wait {
382 while (0 <= (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) { 1074 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
383 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }), 1075 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
384 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} }); 1076 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
385 } 1077 }
386 1078
387 undef $PID_IDLE; 1079 undef $PID_IDLE;
388} 1080}
389 1081
1082sub _sigchld {
1083 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
1084 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
1085 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1086 &_child_wait;
1087 });
1088}
1089
390sub child { 1090sub child {
391 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1091 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
392 1092
393 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0) 1093 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
394 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing"; 1094 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
395 1095
396 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1096 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
397 1097
398 unless ($WNOHANG) { 1098 unless ($WNOHANG) {
399 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1; 1099 $WNOHANG = eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
400 } 1100 }
401 1101
402 unless ($CHLD_W) { 1102 unless ($CHLD_W) {
403 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_child_wait); 1103 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
404 # child could be a zombie already 1104 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
405 $PID_IDLE ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => \&_child_wait); 1105 &_sigchld;
406 } 1106 }
407 1107
408 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child" 1108 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
409} 1109}
410 1110
415 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} }; 1115 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
416 1116
417 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB; 1117 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
418} 1118}
419 1119
1120package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1121
1122our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1123
1124package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1125
1126use overload
1127 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1128 fallback => 1;
1129
1130sub _send {
1131 # nop
1132}
1133
1134sub send {
1135 my $cv = shift;
1136 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1137 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1138 $cv->_send;
1139}
1140
1141sub croak {
1142 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1143 $_[0]->send;
1144}
1145
1146sub ready {
1147 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1148}
1149
1150sub _wait {
1151 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1152}
1153
1154sub recv {
1155 $_[0]->_wait;
1156
1157 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1158 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1159}
1160
1161sub cb {
1162 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1163 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
1164}
1165
1166sub begin {
1167 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1168 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1169}
1170
1171sub end {
1172 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1173 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1174}
1175
1176# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1177*broadcast = \&send;
1178*wait = \&_wait;
1179
1180=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1181
1182In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1183caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1184the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1185checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1186development.
1187
1188As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1189executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1190also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1191program.
1192
1193The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1194within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1195$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1196so on.
1197
1198=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1199
1200The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1201submodules:
1202
1203=over 4
1204
1205=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1206
1207By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1208conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1209talkative.
1210
1211When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1212conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1213C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1214
1215When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1216model it chooses.
1217
1218=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1219
1220AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1221argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1222will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1223check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems
1224it will croak.
1225
1226In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1227
1228Unlike C<use strict>, it is definitely recommended ot keep it off in
1229production. Keeping C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while
1230developing programs can be very useful, however.
1231
1232=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1233
1234This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1235auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1236entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1237and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1238used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1239auto detection and -probing.
1240
1241This functionality might change in future versions.
1242
1243For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1244could start your program like this:
1245
1246 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1247
1248=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1249
1250Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1251for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1252of auto probing).
1253
1254Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1255current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1256used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1257list.
1258
1259This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1260against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1261small, as the program has to handle connection errors already-
1262
1263Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1264but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1265- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1266addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1267IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1268
1269=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1270
1271Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1272for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1273some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1274default.
1275
1276Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1277EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1278
1279=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1280
1281The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1282will create in parallel.
1283
1284=back
1285
420=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE 1286=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1287
1288This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1289a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1290provide AnyEvent compatibility.
421 1291
422If you need to support another event library which isn't directly 1292If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
423supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by 1293supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
424pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of 1294pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
425the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto 1295the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
426C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading 1296C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
427AnyEvent. 1297AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
428 1298
429Example: 1299Example:
430 1300
431 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::]; 1301 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
432 1302
433This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::> 1303This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
434package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is loaded. When 1304package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1305
435AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will 1306When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
436first check for the presence of urxvt. 1307will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1308C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
437 1309
438The class should provide implementations for all watcher types (see 1310The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
439L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> 1311L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
440(Source code) and so on for actual examples, use C<perldoc -m 1312and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
441AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to see the sources). 1313see the sources.
442 1314
1315If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1316provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1317
443The above isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt) 1318The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
444uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent 1319terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
445because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside 1320in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
446I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the 1321inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
447I<rxvt-unicode> distribution. 1322I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
448 1323
449I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to 1324I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
450condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will 1325condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
451C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must 1326C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
452not be in an interactive application, so it makes sense. 1327not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
453 1328
454=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
455
456The following environment variables are used by this module:
457
458C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, reports which event
459model gets used.
460
461=head1 EXAMPLE 1329=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
462 1330
463The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 1331The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
464to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 1332to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
465when the user enters quit: 1333program when the user enters quit:
466 1334
467 use AnyEvent; 1335 use AnyEvent;
468 1336
469 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 1337 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
470 1338
471 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 1339 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1340 fh => \*STDIN,
1341 poll => 'r',
1342 cb => sub {
472 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1343 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
473 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1344 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
474 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1345 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
475 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1346 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1347 },
476 }); 1348 );
477 1349
478 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once 1350 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
479 1351
480 sub new_timer { 1352 sub new_timer {
481 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 1353 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
484 }); 1356 });
485 } 1357 }
486 1358
487 new_timer; # create first timer 1359 new_timer; # create first timer
488 1360
489 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1361 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
490 1362
491=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 1363=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
492 1364
493Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 1365Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
494API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 1366API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
544 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 1416 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
545 or die "connection or write error"; 1417 or die "connection or write error";
546 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 1418 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
547 1419
548Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 1420Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
549result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 1421result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
550 1422
551 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 1423 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
552 1424
553 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 1425 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
554 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 1426 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
555 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 1427 $txn->{finished}->send;
556 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 1428 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
557 } 1429 }
558 1430
559The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 1431The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
560request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 1432request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
561data: 1433data:
562 1434
563 $txn->{finished}->wait; 1435 $txn->{finished}->recv;
564 return $txn->{result}; 1436 return $txn->{result};
565 1437
566The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 1438The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
567that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 1439that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
568wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 1440whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
569and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 1441and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
570problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 1442problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
571random callback. 1443random callback.
572 1444
573All of this enables the following usage styles: 1445All of this enables the following usage styles:
574 1446
5751. Blocking: 14471. Blocking:
576 1448
577 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); 1449 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
578 1450
5792. Blocking, but parallelizing: 14512. Blocking, but running in parallel:
580 1452
581 my @datas = map $_->result, 1453 my @datas = map $_->result,
582 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_), 1454 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
583 @urls; 1455 @urls;
584 1456
585Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know 1457Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
586anything about events. 1458anything about events.
587 1459
5883a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module: 14603a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
589 1461
590 use Event; 1462 use EV;
591 1463
592 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1464 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
593 my $txn = shift; 1465 my $txn = shift;
594 my $data = $txn->result; 1466 my $data = $txn->result;
595 ... 1467 ...
596 }); 1468 });
597 1469
598 Event::loop; 1470 EV::loop;
599 1471
6003b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too: 14723b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
601 1473
602 use AnyEvent; 1474 use AnyEvent;
603 1475
604 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 1476 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
605 1477
606 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1478 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
607 ... 1479 ...
608 $quit->broadcast; 1480 $quit->send;
609 }); 1481 });
610 1482
611 $quit->wait; 1483 $quit->recv;
1484
1485
1486=head1 BENCHMARKS
1487
1488To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1489over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1490of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1491
1492=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1493
1494Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1495through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1496timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1497which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1498
1499Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1500distribution.
1501
1502=head3 Explanation of the columns
1503
1504I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1505different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1506loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1507and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1508would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1509of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1510
1511I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1512RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1513and Perl-based overheads.
1514
1515I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1516takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1517all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1518and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1519
1520I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1521callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1522invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1523signal the end of this phase.
1524
1525I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1526watcher.
1527
1528=head3 Results
1529
1530 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1531 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1532 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1533 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1534 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1535 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1536 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1537 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1538 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1539 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1540 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1541
1542=head3 Discussion
1543
1544The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1545well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1546can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1547file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1548the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1549boost.
1550
1551Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1552overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1553the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1554higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1555
1556To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1557benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1558EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1559cycles with POE.
1560
1561C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1562maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1563far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1564natively.
1565
1566The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1567constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1568interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1569adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1570performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1571them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1572
1573The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1574cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1575
1576C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1577faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1578C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1579watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1580making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1581(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1582inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1583
1584The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1585more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1586precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1587file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1588employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1589hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1590above).
1591
1592C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1593select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1594be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1595memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1596as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1597requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1598invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1599implementation.
1600
1601The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1602for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1603small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1604optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1605using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1606memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1607design).
1608
1609=head3 Summary
1610
1611=over 4
1612
1613=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1614(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1615performance with or without AnyEvent.
1616
1617=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1618the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1619adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1620
1621=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1622reasonable memory usage.
1623
1624=back
1625
1626=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1627
1628This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1629creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1630timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1631watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1632watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1633
1634The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1635are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1636fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1637timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1638most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1639
1640In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1641(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1642connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1643
1644Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1645distribution.
1646
1647=head3 Explanation of the columns
1648
1649I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1650each server has a read and write socket end).
1651
1652I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1653nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1654
1655I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1656single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1657it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1658a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1659
1660=head3 Results
1661
1662 name sockets create request
1663 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1664 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1665 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1666 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1667 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1668
1669=head3 Discussion
1670
1671This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1672particular event loop.
1673
1674EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1675is relatively high, though.
1676
1677Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1678loops Event and Glib.
1679
1680Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1681understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1682the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1683uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1684
1685Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1686clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1687
1688POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1689as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1690it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1691
1692=head3 Summary
1693
1694=over 4
1695
1696=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1697
1698=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1699
1700=back
1701
1702=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1703
1704While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1705large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1706I/O watchers.
1707
1708In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1709case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1710one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1711well.
1712
1713The columns are identical to the previous table.
1714
1715=head3 Results
1716
1717 name sockets create request
1718 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1719 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1720 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1721 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1722 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1723
1724=head3 Discussion
1725
1726The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1727server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1728in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1729to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1730speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1731them).
1732
1733EV is again fastest.
1734
1735Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1736loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1737matter.
1738
1739POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1740others.
1741
1742=head3 Summary
1743
1744=over 4
1745
1746=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1747watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1748
1749=back
1750
1751
1752=head1 FORK
1753
1754Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1755because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1756calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1757
1758If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1759watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1760
1761
1762=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1763
1764AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1765$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1766execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1767make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1768will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1769specified in the variable.
1770
1771You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1772before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1773
1774 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1775
1776 use AnyEvent;
1777
1778Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1779be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1780probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
1781$ENV{PERL_ANYEGENT_STRICT}.
1782
1783
1784=head1 BUGS
1785
1786Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
1787to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
1788and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
1789mamleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
1790pronounced).
1791
612 1792
613=head1 SEE ALSO 1793=head1 SEE ALSO
614 1794
615Event modules: L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>. 1795Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
616 1796
617Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 1797Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1798L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
618 1799
619Nontrivial usage example: L<Net::FCP>. 1800Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1801L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1802L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1803L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
620 1804
621=head1 1805Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1806servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1807
1808Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1809
1810Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1811
1812Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1813
1814
1815=head1 AUTHOR
1816
1817 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1818 http://home.schmorp.de/
622 1819
623=cut 1820=cut
624 1821
6251 18221
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