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1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops 3AnyEvent - the DBI of event loop programming
4 4
5Event, Coro, Glib, Tk - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Irssi, rxvt-unicode, IO::Async, Qt
6and POE are various supported event loops/environments.
6 7
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 8=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 9
9use AnyEvent; 10 use AnyEvent;
10 11
12 # if you prefer function calls, look at the AE manpage for
13 # an alternative API.
14
15 # file handle or descriptor readable
11 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (fh => ..., poll => "[rw]+", cb => sub { 16 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r", cb => sub { ... });
12 my ($poll_got) = @_; 17
18 # one-shot or repeating timers
19 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { ... });
20 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, interval => $seconds, cb => ...);
21
22 print AnyEvent->now; # prints current event loop time
23 print AnyEvent->time; # think Time::HiRes::time or simply CORE::time.
24
25 # POSIX signal
26 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "TERM", cb => sub { ... });
27
28 # child process exit
29 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
30 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
13 ... 31 ...
14 }); 32 });
33
34 # called when event loop idle (if applicable)
35 my $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub { ... });
36
37 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
38 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
39 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
40 # use a condvar in callback mode:
41 $w->cb (sub { $_[0]->recv });
42
43=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
44
45This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
46in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
47L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
48
49=head1 SUPPORT
50
51There is a mailinglist for discussing all things AnyEvent, and an IRC
52channel, too.
53
54See the AnyEvent project page at the B<Schmorpforge Ta-Sa Software
55Repository>, at L<http://anyevent.schmorp.de>, for more info.
56
57=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
58
59Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
60nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
61
62Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
63policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
64
65First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
66interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use, in a
67pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
68the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
69only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
70cannot change this, but it can hide the differences between those event
71loops.
72
73The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
74programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
75religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
76module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
77model you use.
78
79For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
80actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
81like joining a cult: After you join, you are dependent on them and you
82cannot use anything else, as they are simply incompatible to everything
83that isn't them. What's worse, all the potential users of your
84module are I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
85
86AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
87fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
88with the rest: POE + IO::Async? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if
89your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
90too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
91event models it supports (including stuff like IO::Async, as long as those
92use one of the supported event loops. It is easy to add new event loops
93to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
94
95In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
96model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
97modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
98follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and to the point, by only
99offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
100technically possible.
101
102Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
103of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
104non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
105such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
106platform bugs and differences.
107
108Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
109useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
110model, you should I<not> use this module.
111
112=head1 DESCRIPTION
113
114L<AnyEvent> provides a uniform interface to various event loops. This
115allows module authors to use event loop functionality without forcing
116module users to use a specific event loop implementation (since more
117than one event loop cannot coexist peacefully).
118
119The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
120module.
121
122During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
123to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
124following modules is already loaded: L<EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
125L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>. The first one
126found is used. If none are detected, the module tries to load the first
127four modules in the order given; but note that if L<EV> is not
128available, the pure-perl L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> should always work, so
129the other two are not normally tried.
130
131Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
132an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
133that model the default. For example:
134
135 use Tk;
136 use AnyEvent;
137
138 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
139
140The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
141starts using it, all bets are off - this case should be very rare though,
142as very few modules hardcode event loops without announcing this very
143loudly.
144
145The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
146C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
147explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
148
149=head1 WATCHERS
150
151AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
152stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
153the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
154
155These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
156creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
157callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
158is in control).
159
160Note that B<callbacks must not permanently change global variables>
161potentially in use by the event loop (such as C<$_> or C<$[>) and that B<<
162callbacks must not C<die> >>. The former is good programming practice in
163Perl and the latter stems from the fact that exception handling differs
164widely between event loops.
165
166To disable a watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
167variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
168to it).
169
170All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
171
172Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
173example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
174
175One way to achieve that is this pattern:
176
177 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
178 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
179 undef $w;
180 });
181
182Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
183my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
184declared.
185
186=head2 I/O WATCHERS
187
188 $w = AnyEvent->io (
189 fh => <filehandle_or_fileno>,
190 poll => <"r" or "w">,
191 cb => <callback>,
192 );
193
194You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
195with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
196
197C<fh> is the Perl I<file handle> (or a naked file descriptor) to watch
198for events (AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file
199handle). Note that only file handles pointing to things for which
200non-blocking operation makes sense are allowed. This includes sockets,
201most character devices, pipes, fifos and so on, but not for example files
202or block devices.
203
204C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a
205watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively.
206
207C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
208
209Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
210presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
211callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
212
213The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
214You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
215underlying file descriptor.
216
217Some event loops issue spurious readiness notifications, so you should
218always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
219handles.
220
221Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
222watcher.
223
224 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
225 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
226 warn "read: $input\n";
227 undef $w;
228 });
229
230=head2 TIME WATCHERS
231
232 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => <seconds>, cb => <callback>);
233
234 $w = AnyEvent->timer (
235 after => <fractional_seconds>,
236 interval => <fractional_seconds>,
237 cb => <callback>,
238 );
239
240You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
241method with the following mandatory arguments:
242
243C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
244supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
245in that case.
246
247Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
248presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
249callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
250
251The callback will normally be invoked only once. If you specify another
252parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
253callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
254seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
255false value, then it is treated as if it were not specified at all.
256
257The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
258attempt is made to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
259only approximate.
260
261Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
262
15 my $w = AnyEvent->io (after => $seconds, cb => sub { 263 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
264 warn "timeout\n";
265 });
266
267 # to cancel the timer:
268 undef $w;
269
270Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
271
272 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
273 warn "timeout\n";
274 };
275
276=head3 TIMING ISSUES
277
278There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
279in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
280o'clock").
281
282While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
283use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
284"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
285the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
286fire "after a second" might actually take six years to finally fire.
287
288AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
289of these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
290on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
291timers.
292
293AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
294AnyEvent API.
295
296AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
297
298=over 4
299
300=item AnyEvent->time
301
302This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
303seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
304return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
305
306It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
307will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
308
309=item AnyEvent->now
310
311This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
312this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
313the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
314time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
315
316I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
317function to call when you want to know the current time.>
318
319This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
320thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
321L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update its activity timeouts).
322
323The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
324with your timing; you can skip it without a bad conscience.
325
326For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
327and L<EV> and the following set-up:
328
329The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callbacks at
330time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
331you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
332second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
333after three seconds.
334
335With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
336both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
337be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
338
339With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
340time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
341last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
342to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
343
344In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
345regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
346callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
347higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
348
349In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
350the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
351
352In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
353can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
354difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
355account.
356
357=item AnyEvent->now_update
358
359Some event loops (such as L<EV> or L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) cache
360the current time for each loop iteration (see the discussion of L<<
361AnyEvent->now >>, above).
362
363When a callback runs for a long time (or when the process sleeps), then
364this "current" time will differ substantially from the real time, which
365might affect timers and time-outs.
366
367When this is the case, you can call this method, which will update the
368event loop's idea of "current time".
369
370A typical example would be a script in a web server (e.g. C<mod_perl>) -
371when mod_perl executes the script, then the event loop will have the wrong
372idea about the "current time" (being potentially far in the past, when the
373script ran the last time). In that case you should arrange a call to C<<
374AnyEvent->now_update >> each time the web server process wakes up again
375(e.g. at the start of your script, or in a handler).
376
377Note that updating the time I<might> cause some events to be handled.
378
379=back
380
381=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
382
383 $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => <uppercase_signal_name>, cb => <callback>);
384
385You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
386I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
387callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
388
389Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
390presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
391callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
392
393Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
394invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
395that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
396but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
397
398The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
399between multiple watchers, and AnyEvent will ensure that signals will not
400interrupt your program at bad times.
401
402This watcher might use C<%SIG> (depending on the event loop used),
403so programs overwriting those signals directly will likely not work
404correctly.
405
406Example: exit on SIGINT
407
408 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
409
410=head3 Restart Behaviour
411
412While restart behaviour is up to the event loop implementation, most will
413not restart syscalls (that includes L<Async::Interrupt> and AnyEvent's
414pure perl implementation).
415
416=head3 Safe/Unsafe Signals
417
418Perl signals can be either "safe" (synchronous to opcode handling) or
419"unsafe" (asynchronous) - the former might get delayed indefinitely, the
420latter might corrupt your memory.
421
422AnyEvent signal handlers are, in addition, synchronous to the event loop,
423i.e. they will not interrupt your running perl program but will only be
424called as part of the normal event handling (just like timer, I/O etc.
425callbacks, too).
426
427=head3 Signal Races, Delays and Workarounds
428
429Many event loops (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt, IO::Async) do not support attaching
430callbacks to signals in a generic way, which is a pity, as you cannot
431do race-free signal handling in perl, requiring C libraries for
432this. AnyEvent will try to do its best, which means in some cases,
433signals will be delayed. The maximum time a signal might be delayed is
434specified in C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY> (default: 10 seconds). This
435variable can be changed only before the first signal watcher is created,
436and should be left alone otherwise. This variable determines how often
437AnyEvent polls for signals (in case a wake-up was missed). Higher values
438will cause fewer spurious wake-ups, which is better for power and CPU
439saving.
440
441All these problems can be avoided by installing the optional
442L<Async::Interrupt> module, which works with most event loops. It will not
443work with inherently broken event loops such as L<Event> or L<Event::Lib>
444(and not with L<POE> currently, as POE does its own workaround with
445one-second latency). For those, you just have to suffer the delays.
446
447=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
448
449 $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => <process id>, cb => <callback>);
450
451You can also watch for a child process exit and catch its exit status.
452
453The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (on some backends,
454using C<0> watches for any child process exit, on others this will
455croak). The watcher will be triggered only when the child process has
456finished and an exit status is available, not on any trace events
457(stopped/continued).
458
459The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
460waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
461callback arguments.
462
463This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
464and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
465random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
466C<system>, is just fine).
467
468There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
469I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
470have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
471
472Not all event models handle this correctly (neither POE nor IO::Async do,
473see their AnyEvent::Impl manpages for details), but even for event models
474that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be loaded before
475the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place). AnyEvent's
476pure perl event loop handles all cases correctly regardless of when you
477start the watcher.
478
479This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first
480thing in an AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one
481watcher before you C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call
482C<AnyEvent::detect>).
483
484As most event loops do not support waiting for child events, they will be
485emulated by AnyEvent in most cases, in which the latency and race problems
486mentioned in the description of signal watchers apply.
487
488Example: fork a process and wait for it
489
490 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
491
492 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
493
494 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
495 pid => $pid,
496 cb => sub {
497 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
498 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
499 $done->send;
500 },
501 );
502
503 # do something else, then wait for process exit
504 $done->recv;
505
506=head2 IDLE WATCHERS
507
508 $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => <callback>);
509
510This will repeatedly invoke the callback after the process becomes idle,
511until either the watcher is destroyed or new events have been detected.
512
513Idle watchers are useful when there is a need to do something, but it
514is not so important (or wise) to do it instantly. The callback will be
515invoked only when there is "nothing better to do", which is usually
516defined as "all outstanding events have been handled and no new events
517have been detected". That means that idle watchers ideally get invoked
518when the event loop has just polled for new events but none have been
519detected. Instead of blocking to wait for more events, the idle watchers
520will be invoked.
521
522Unfortunately, most event loops do not really support idle watchers (only
523EV, Event and Glib do it in a usable fashion) - for the rest, AnyEvent
524will simply call the callback "from time to time".
525
526Example: read lines from STDIN, but only process them when the
527program is otherwise idle:
528
529 my @lines; # read data
530 my $idle_w;
531 my $io_w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
532 push @lines, scalar <STDIN>;
533
534 # start an idle watcher, if not already done
535 $idle_w ||= AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub {
536 # handle only one line, when there are lines left
537 if (my $line = shift @lines) {
538 print "handled when idle: $line";
539 } else {
540 # otherwise disable the idle watcher again
541 undef $idle_w;
542 }
543 });
544 });
545
546=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
547
548 $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
549
550 $cv->send (<list>);
551 my @res = $cv->recv;
552
553If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
554require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
555will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
556
557AnyEvent is slightly different: it expects somebody else to run the event
558loop and will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
559
560The tool to do that is called a "condition variable", so called because
561they represent a condition that must become true.
562
563Now is probably a good time to look at the examples further below.
564
565Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
566>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
567C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
568becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
569the results).
570
571After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
572by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
573were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
574->send >> method).
575
576Since condition variables are the most complex part of the AnyEvent API, here are
577some different mental models of what they are - pick the ones you can connect to:
578
579=over 4
580
581=item * Condition variables are like callbacks - you can call them (and pass them instead
582of callbacks). Unlike callbacks however, you can also wait for them to be called.
583
584=item * Condition variables are signals - one side can emit or send them,
585the other side can wait for them, or install a handler that is called when
586the signal fires.
587
588=item * Condition variables are like "Merge Points" - points in your program
589where you merge multiple independent results/control flows into one.
590
591=item * Condition variables represent a transaction - functions that start
592some kind of transaction can return them, leaving the caller the choice
593between waiting in a blocking fashion, or setting a callback.
594
595=item * Condition variables represent future values, or promises to deliver
596some result, long before the result is available.
597
598=back
599
600Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
601for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
602then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
603availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
604called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
605
606You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
607you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
608could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
609button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
610
611Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
612two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
613lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
614you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
615as this asks for trouble.
616
617Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
618used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
619easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
620AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
621its C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
622
623There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
624eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
625for the send to occur.
626
627Example: wait for a timer.
628
629 # condition: "wait till the timer is fired"
630 my $timer_fired = AnyEvent->condvar;
631
632 # create the timer - we could wait for, say
633 # a handle becomign ready, or even an
634 # AnyEvent::HTTP request to finish, but
635 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
636 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
637 after => 1,
638 cb => sub { $timer_fired->send },
639 );
640
641 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
642 # calls ->send
643 $timer_fired->recv;
644
645Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that condition
646variables are also callable directly.
647
648 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
649 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
650 $done->recv;
651
652Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
653callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
654the main program:
655
656 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
657
658 ...
659
660 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
661
662And this is how you would just set a callback to be called whenever the
663results are available:
664
665 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
666 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
667 });
668
669=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
670
671These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
672code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
673the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
674uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
675
676=over 4
677
678=item $cv->send (...)
679
680Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
681calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
682called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
683
684If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
685immediately from within send.
686
687Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
688future C<< ->recv >> calls.
689
690Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly (as if
691they were a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
692C<send>.
693
694=item $cv->croak ($error)
695
696Similar to send, but causes all calls to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
697C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
698
699This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
700user/consumer. Doing it this way instead of calling C<croak> directly
701delays the error detection, but has the overwhelming advantage that it
702diagnoses the error at the place where the result is expected, and not
703deep in some event callback with no connection to the actual code causing
704the problem.
705
706=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
707
708=item $cv->end
709
710These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
711one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
712to use a condition variable for the whole process.
713
714Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
715C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
716>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed, passing the
717condvar as first argument. That callback is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send
718>>, but that is not required. If no group callback was set, C<send> will
719be called without any arguments.
720
721You can think of C<< $cv->send >> giving you an OR condition (one call
722sends), while C<< $cv->begin >> and C<< $cv->end >> giving you an AND
723condition (all C<begin> calls must be C<end>'ed before the condvar sends).
724
725Let's start with a simple example: you have two I/O watchers (for example,
726STDOUT and STDERR for a program), and you want to wait for both streams to
727close before activating a condvar:
728
729 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
730
731 $cv->begin; # first watcher
732 my $w1 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh1, cb => sub {
733 defined sysread $fh1, my $buf, 4096
734 or $cv->end;
735 });
736
737 $cv->begin; # second watcher
738 my $w2 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh2, cb => sub {
739 defined sysread $fh2, my $buf, 4096
740 or $cv->end;
741 });
742
743 $cv->recv;
744
745This works because for every event source (EOF on file handle), there is
746one call to C<begin>, so the condvar waits for all calls to C<end> before
747sending.
748
749The ping example mentioned above is slightly more complicated, as the
750there are results to be passwd back, and the number of tasks that are
751begun can potentially be zero:
752
753 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
754
755 my %result;
756 $cv->begin (sub { shift->send (\%result) });
757
758 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
759 $cv->begin;
760 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
761 $result{$host} = ...;
762 $cv->end;
763 };
764 }
765
766 $cv->end;
767
768This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
769C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
770order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
771each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
772it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
773results arrive is not relevant.
774
775There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
776loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
777to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
778C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
779doesn't execute once).
780
781This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple (but
782potentially zero) subrequests: use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set
783the callback and ensure C<end> is called at least once, and then, for each
784subrequest you start, call C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish,
785call C<end>.
786
787=back
788
789=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
790
791These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
792code awaits the condition.
793
794=over 4
795
796=item $cv->recv
797
798Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
799>> methods have been called on C<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
800normally.
801
802You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
803will return immediately.
804
805If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
806function will call C<croak>.
807
808In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
809in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
810
811Note that doing a blocking wait in a callback is not supported by any
812event loop, that is, recursive invocation of a blocking C<< ->recv
813>> is not allowed, and the C<recv> call will C<croak> if such a
814condition is detected. This condition can be slightly loosened by using
815L<Coro::AnyEvent>, which allows you to do a blocking C<< ->recv >> from
816any thread that doesn't run the event loop itself.
817
818Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
819(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
820using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>. Instead, let the
821caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
822condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
823callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
824while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
825
826You can ensure that C<< ->recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
827only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
828time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
829waits otherwise.
830
831=item $bool = $cv->ready
832
833Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
834C<croak> have been called.
835
836=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
837
838This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
839replaces it before doing so.
840
841The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
842C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the
843condition variable itself. If the condition is already true, the
844callback is called immediately when it is set. Calling C<recv> inside
845the callback or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
846
847=back
848
849=head1 SUPPORTED EVENT LOOPS/BACKENDS
850
851The available backend classes are (every class has its own manpage):
852
853=over 4
854
855=item Backends that are autoprobed when no other event loop can be found.
856
857EV is the preferred backend when no other event loop seems to be in
858use. If EV is not installed, then AnyEvent will fall back to its own
859pure-perl implementation, which is available everywhere as it comes with
860AnyEvent itself.
861
862 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (interface to libev, best choice).
863 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
864
865=item Backends that are transparently being picked up when they are used.
866
867These will be used if they are already loaded when the first watcher
868is created, in which case it is assumed that the application is using
869them. This means that AnyEvent will automatically pick the right backend
870when the main program loads an event module before anything starts to
871create watchers. Nothing special needs to be done by the main program.
872
873 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, very stable, few glitches.
874 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, slow but very stable.
875 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very broken.
876 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
877 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, very slow, some limitations.
878 AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi used when running within irssi.
879
880=item Backends with special needs.
881
882Qt requires the Qt::Application to be instantiated first, but will
883otherwise be picked up automatically. As long as the main program
884instantiates the application before any AnyEvent watchers are created,
885everything should just work.
886
887 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt.
888
889Support for IO::Async can only be partial, as it is too broken and
890architecturally limited to even support the AnyEvent API. It also
891is the only event loop that needs the loop to be set explicitly, so
892it can only be used by a main program knowing about AnyEvent. See
893L<AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync> for the gory details.
894
895 AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync based on IO::Async, cannot be autoprobed.
896
897=item Event loops that are indirectly supported via other backends.
898
899Some event loops can be supported via other modules:
900
901There is no direct support for WxWidgets (L<Wx>) or L<Prima>.
902
903B<WxWidgets> has no support for watching file handles. However, you can
904use WxWidgets through the POE adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply
905polls 20 times per second, which was considered to be too horrible to even
906consider for AnyEvent.
907
908B<Prima> is not supported as nobody seems to be using it, but it has a POE
909backend, so it can be supported through POE.
910
911AnyEvent knows about both L<Prima> and L<Wx>, however, and will try to
912load L<POE> when detecting them, in the hope that POE will pick them up,
913in which case everything will be automatic.
914
915=back
916
917=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
918
919These are not normally required to use AnyEvent, but can be useful to
920write AnyEvent extension modules.
921
922=over 4
923
924=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
925
926Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created, before the
927backend has been autodetected.
928
929Afterwards it contains the event model that is being used, which is the
930name of the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one
931of the C<AnyEvent::Impl::xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the
932case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode> it
933will be C<urxvt::anyevent>).
934
935=item AnyEvent::detect
936
937Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
938if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
939have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
940runtime, and not e.g. during initialisation of your module.
941
942If you need to do some initialisation before AnyEvent watchers are
943created, use C<post_detect>.
944
945=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
946
947Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
948autodetected (or immediately if that has already happened).
949
950The block will be executed I<after> the actual backend has been detected
951(C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> is set), but I<before> any watchers have been
952created, so it is possible to e.g. patch C<@AnyEvent::ISA> or do
953other initialisations - see the sources of L<AnyEvent::Strict> or
954L<AnyEvent::AIO> to see how this is used.
955
956The most common usage is to create some global watchers, without forcing
957event module detection too early, for example, L<AnyEvent::AIO> creates
958and installs the global L<IO::AIO> watcher in a C<post_detect> block to
959avoid autodetecting the event module at load time.
960
961If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
962that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed (or
963C<undef> when the hook was immediately executed). See L<AnyEvent::AIO> for
964a case where this is useful.
965
966Example: Create a watcher for the IO::AIO module and store it in
967C<$WATCHER>, but do so only do so after the event loop is initialised.
968
969 our WATCHER;
970
971 my $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect {
972 $WATCHER = AnyEvent->io (fh => IO::AIO::poll_fileno, poll => 'r', cb => \&IO::AIO::poll_cb);
973 };
974
975 # the ||= is important in case post_detect immediately runs the block,
976 # as to not clobber the newly-created watcher. assigning both watcher and
977 # post_detect guard to the same variable has the advantage of users being
978 # able to just C<undef $WATCHER> if the watcher causes them grief.
979
980 $WATCHER ||= $guard;
981
982=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
983
984If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
985before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will be called directly
986after the event loop has been chosen.
987
988You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
989if it is defined then the event loop has already been detected, and the
990array will be ignored.
991
992Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> when your application allows
993it, as it takes care of these details.
994
995This variable is mainly useful for modules that can do something useful
996when AnyEvent is used and thus want to know when it is initialised, but do
997not need to even load it by default. This array provides the means to hook
998into AnyEvent passively, without loading it.
999
1000Example: To load Coro::AnyEvent whenever Coro and AnyEvent are used
1001together, you could put this into Coro (this is the actual code used by
1002Coro to accomplish this):
1003
1004 if (defined $AnyEvent::MODEL) {
1005 # AnyEvent already initialised, so load Coro::AnyEvent
1006 require Coro::AnyEvent;
1007 } else {
1008 # AnyEvent not yet initialised, so make sure to load Coro::AnyEvent
1009 # as soon as it is
1010 push @AnyEvent::post_detect, sub { require Coro::AnyEvent };
1011 }
1012
1013=back
1014
1015=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
1016
1017As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
1018freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
1019
1020Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
1021decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
1022by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
1023to load the event module first.
1024
1025Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
1026the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
1027because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
1028events is to stay interactive.
1029
1030It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
1031requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
1032called C<results> that returns the results, it may call C<< ->recv >>
1033freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. Always).
1034
1035=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
1036
1037There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
1038dictate which event model to use.
1039
1040If the program is not event-based, it need not do anything special, even
1041when it depends on a module that uses an AnyEvent. If the program itself
1042uses AnyEvent, but does not care which event loop is used, all it needs
1043to do is C<use AnyEvent>. In either case, AnyEvent will choose the best
1044available loop implementation.
1045
1046If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
1047Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
1048event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
1049speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
1050modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
1051decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
1052might choose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
1053
1054You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
1055C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
1056everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
1057
1058=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
1059
1060Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
1061only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
1062
1063In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
1064
1065 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
1066
1067This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
1068
1069Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
1070it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
1071variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
1072exit cleanly.
1073
1074
1075=head1 OTHER MODULES
1076
1077The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
1078AnyEvent as a client and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent
1079modules and other event loops in the same program. Some of the modules
1080come as part of AnyEvent, the others are available via CPAN.
1081
1082=over 4
1083
1084=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
1085
1086Contains various utility functions that replace often-used blocking
1087functions such as C<inet_aton> with event/callback-based versions.
1088
1089=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
1090
1091Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
1092addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
1093connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
1094
1095=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
1096
1097Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
1098supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
1099non-blocking SSL/TLS (via L<AnyEvent::TLS>).
1100
1101=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
1102
1103Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
1104
1105=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>, L<AnyEvent::IRC>, L<AnyEvent::XMPP>, L<AnyEvent::GPSD>, L<AnyEvent::IGS>, L<AnyEvent::FCP>
1106
1107Implement event-based interfaces to the protocols of the same name (for
1108the curious, IGS is the International Go Server and FCP is the Freenet
1109Client Protocol).
1110
1111=item L<AnyEvent::Handle::UDP>
1112
1113Here be danger!
1114
1115As Pauli would put it, "Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!" -
1116there are so many things wrong with AnyEvent::Handle::UDP, most notably
1117its use of a stream-based API with a protocol that isn't streamable, that
1118the only way to improve it is to delete it.
1119
1120It features data corruption (but typically only under load) and general
1121confusion. On top, the author is not only clueless about UDP but also
1122fact-resistant - some gems of his understanding: "connect doesn't work
1123with UDP", "UDP packets are not IP packets", "UDP only has datagrams, not
1124packets", "I don't need to implement proper error checking as UDP doesn't
1125support error checking" and so on - he doesn't even understand what's
1126wrong with his module when it is explained to him.
1127
1128=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
1129
1130Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process for you,
1131notifying you in an event-based way when the operation is finished.
1132
1133=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
1134
1135Truly asynchronous (as opposed to non-blocking) I/O, should be in the
1136toolbox of every event programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
1137L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent together, giving AnyEvent access to event-based
1138file I/O, and much more.
1139
1140=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
1141
1142A simple embedded webserver.
1143
1144=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
1145
1146The fastest ping in the west.
1147
1148=item L<Coro>
1149
1150Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
1151
1152=back
1153
1154=cut
1155
1156package AnyEvent;
1157
1158# basically a tuned-down version of common::sense
1159sub common_sense {
1160 # from common:.sense 3.3
1161 ${^WARNING_BITS} ^= ${^WARNING_BITS} ^ "\x3c\x3f\x33\x00\x0f\xf3\x0f\xc0\xf0\xfc\x33\x00";
1162 # use strict vars subs - NO UTF-8, as Util.pm doesn't like this atm. (uts46data.pl)
1163 $^H |= 0x00000600;
1164}
1165
1166BEGIN { AnyEvent::common_sense }
1167
1168use Carp ();
1169
1170our $VERSION = '5.271';
1171our $MODEL;
1172
1173our $AUTOLOAD;
1174our @ISA;
1175
1176our @REGISTRY;
1177
1178our $VERBOSE;
1179
1180BEGIN {
1181 require "AnyEvent/constants.pl";
1182
1183 eval "sub TAINT (){" . (${^TAINT}*1) . "}";
1184
1185 delete @ENV{grep /^PERL_ANYEVENT_/, keys %ENV}
1186 if ${^TAINT};
1187
1188 $VERBOSE = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
1189
1190}
1191
1192our $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY = 10;
1193
1194our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
1195
1196{
1197 my $idx;
1198 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
1199 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
1200 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
1201}
1202
1203my @models = (
1204 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV:: , 1],
1205 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: , 1],
1206 # everything below here will not (normally) be autoprobed
1207 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
1208 # and is usually faster
1209 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::, 1],
1210 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib:: , 1], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
1211 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
1212 [Irssi:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi::], # Irssi has a bogus "Event" package
1213 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
1214 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
1215 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
1216 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
1217 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
1218 # IO::Async is just too broken - we would need workarounds for its
1219 # byzantine signal and broken child handling, among others.
1220 # IO::Async is rather hard to detect, as it doesn't have any
1221 # obvious default class.
1222 [IO::Async:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1223 [IO::Async::Loop:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1224 [IO::Async::Notifier:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1225 [AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1226);
1227
1228our %method = map +($_ => 1),
1229 qw(io timer time now now_update signal child idle condvar one_event DESTROY);
1230
1231our @post_detect;
1232
1233sub post_detect(&) {
1234 my ($cb) = @_;
1235
1236 push @post_detect, $cb;
1237
1238 defined wantarray
1239 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::postdetect"
1240 : ()
1241}
1242
1243sub AnyEvent::Util::postdetect::DESTROY {
1244 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
1245}
1246
1247sub detect() {
1248 # free some memory
1249 *detect = sub () { $MODEL };
1250
1251 local $!; # for good measure
1252 local $SIG{__DIE__};
1253
1254 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
1255 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
1256 if (eval "require $model") {
1257 $MODEL = $model;
1258 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}), using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
1259 } else {
1260 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}):\n$@" if $VERBOSE;
1261 }
1262 }
1263
1264 # check for already loaded models
1265 unless ($MODEL) {
1266 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
1267 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
1268 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
1269 if (eval "require $model") {
1270 $MODEL = $model;
1271 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
1272 last;
1273 }
1274 }
1275 }
1276
1277 unless ($MODEL) {
1278 # try to autoload a model
1279 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
1280 my ($package, $model, $autoload) = @$_;
1281 if (
1282 $autoload
1283 and eval "require $package"
1284 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
1285 and eval "require $model"
1286 ) {
1287 $MODEL = $model;
1288 warn "AnyEvent: autoloaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
1289 last;
1290 }
1291 }
1292
1293 $MODEL
1294 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.\n";
1295 }
1296 }
1297
1298 @models = (); # free probe data
1299
1300 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
1301 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
1302
1303 # now nuke some methods that are overriden by the backend.
1304 # SUPER is not allowed.
1305 for (qw(time signal child idle)) {
1306 undef &{"AnyEvent::Base::$_"}
1307 if defined &{"$MODEL\::$_"};
1308 }
1309
1310 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
1311
1312 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
1313
1314 *post_detect = sub(&) {
1315 shift->();
1316
1317 undef
1318 };
1319
1320 $MODEL
1321}
1322
1323sub AUTOLOAD {
1324 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
1325
1326 $method{$func}
1327 or Carp::croak "$func: not a valid AnyEvent class method";
1328
1329 detect;
1330
1331 my $class = shift;
1332 $class->$func (@_);
1333}
1334
1335# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1336# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1337# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1338sub _dupfh($$;$$) {
1339 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1340
1341 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1342 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<&") : ($w, ">&");
1343
1344 open my $fh2, $mode, $fh
1345 or die "AnyEvent->io: cannot dup() filehandle in mode '$poll': $!,";
1346
1347 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1348
1349 ($fh2, $rw)
1350}
1351
1352=head1 SIMPLIFIED AE API
1353
1354Starting with version 5.0, AnyEvent officially supports a second, much
1355simpler, API that is designed to reduce the calling, typing and memory
1356overhead by using function call syntax and a fixed number of parameters.
1357
1358See the L<AE> manpage for details.
1359
1360=cut
1361
1362package AE;
1363
1364our $VERSION = $AnyEvent::VERSION;
1365
1366# fall back to the main API by default - backends and AnyEvent::Base
1367# implementations can overwrite these.
1368
1369sub io($$$) {
1370 AnyEvent->io (fh => $_[0], poll => $_[1] ? "w" : "r", cb => $_[2])
1371}
1372
1373sub timer($$$) {
1374 AnyEvent->timer (after => $_[0], interval => $_[1], cb => $_[2])
1375}
1376
1377sub signal($$) {
1378 AnyEvent->signal (signal => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1379}
1380
1381sub child($$) {
1382 AnyEvent->child (pid => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1383}
1384
1385sub idle($) {
1386 AnyEvent->idle (cb => $_[0])
1387}
1388
1389sub cv(;&) {
1390 AnyEvent->condvar (@_ ? (cb => $_[0]) : ())
1391}
1392
1393sub now() {
1394 AnyEvent->now
1395}
1396
1397sub now_update() {
1398 AnyEvent->now_update
1399}
1400
1401sub time() {
1402 AnyEvent->time
1403}
1404
1405package AnyEvent::Base;
1406
1407# default implementations for many methods
1408
1409sub time {
1410 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1411 # probe for availability of Time::HiRes
1412 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); Time::HiRes::time (); 1") {
1413 warn "AnyEvent: using Time::HiRes for sub-second timing accuracy.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1414 *AE::time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1415 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1416 } else {
1417 warn "AnyEvent: using built-in time(), WARNING, no sub-second resolution!\n" if $VERBOSE;
1418 *AE::time = sub (){ time }; # epic fail
1419 }
1420
1421 *time = sub { AE::time }; # different prototypes
1422 };
1423 die if $@;
1424
1425 &time
1426}
1427
1428*now = \&time;
1429
1430sub now_update { }
1431
1432# default implementation for ->condvar
1433
1434sub condvar {
1435 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1436 *condvar = sub {
1437 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
1438 };
1439
1440 *AE::cv = sub (;&) {
1441 bless { @_ ? (_ae_cb => shift) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
1442 };
1443 };
1444 die if $@;
1445
1446 &condvar
1447}
1448
1449# default implementation for ->signal
1450
1451our $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1452
1453sub _have_async_interrupt() {
1454 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT = 1*(!$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT}
1455 && eval "use Async::Interrupt 1.02 (); 1")
1456 unless defined $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1457
1458 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1459}
1460
1461our ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W, %SIG_CB, %SIG_EV, $SIG_IO);
1462our (%SIG_ASY, %SIG_ASY_W);
1463our ($SIG_COUNT, $SIG_TW);
1464
1465# install a dummy wakeup watcher to reduce signal catching latency
1466# used by Impls
1467sub _sig_add() {
1468 unless ($SIG_COUNT++) {
1469 # try to align timer on a full-second boundary, if possible
1470 my $NOW = AE::now;
1471
1472 $SIG_TW = AE::timer
1473 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY - ($NOW - int $NOW),
1474 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY,
1475 sub { } # just for the PERL_ASYNC_CHECK
1476 ;
1477 }
1478}
1479
1480sub _sig_del {
1481 undef $SIG_TW
1482 unless --$SIG_COUNT;
1483}
1484
1485our $_sig_name_init; $_sig_name_init = sub {
1486 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1487 undef $_sig_name_init;
1488
1489 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1490 *sig2num = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2num;
1491 *sig2name = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2name;
1492 } else {
1493 require Config;
1494
1495 my %signame2num;
1496 @signame2num{ split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_name} }
1497 = split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_num};
1498
1499 my @signum2name;
1500 @signum2name[values %signame2num] = keys %signame2num;
1501
1502 *sig2num = sub($) {
1503 $_[0] > 0 ? shift : $signame2num{+shift}
1504 };
1505 *sig2name = sub ($) {
1506 $_[0] > 0 ? $signum2name[+shift] : shift
1507 };
1508 }
1509 };
1510 die if $@;
1511};
1512
1513sub sig2num ($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2num }
1514sub sig2name($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2name }
1515
1516sub signal {
1517 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1518 # probe for availability of Async::Interrupt
1519 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1520 warn "AnyEvent: using Async::Interrupt for race-free signal handling.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1521
1522 $SIGPIPE_R = new Async::Interrupt::EventPipe;
1523 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R->fileno, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1524
1525 } else {
1526 warn "AnyEvent: using emulated perl signal handling with latency timer.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1527
1528 if (AnyEvent::WIN32) {
1529 require AnyEvent::Util;
1530
1531 ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_pipe ();
1532 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_R, 1) if $SIGPIPE_R;
1533 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_W, 1) if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1534 } else {
1535 pipe $SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W;
1536 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, AnyEvent::F_SETFL, AnyEvent::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_R;
1537 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, AnyEvent::F_SETFL, AnyEvent::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1538
1539 # not strictly required, as $^F is normally 2, but let's make sure...
1540 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, AnyEvent::F_SETFD, AnyEvent::FD_CLOEXEC;
1541 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, AnyEvent::F_SETFD, AnyEvent::FD_CLOEXEC;
1542 }
1543
1544 $SIGPIPE_R
1545 or Carp::croak "AnyEvent: unable to create a signal reporting pipe: $!\n";
1546
1547 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1548 }
1549
1550 *signal = $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1551 ? sub {
1552 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1553
1554 # async::interrupt
1555 my $signal = sig2num $arg{signal};
1556 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1557
1558 $SIG_ASY{$signal} ||= new Async::Interrupt
1559 cb => sub { undef $SIG_EV{$signal} },
1560 signal => $signal,
1561 pipe => [$SIGPIPE_R->filenos],
1562 pipe_autodrain => 0,
1563 ;
1564
1565 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1566 }
1567 : sub {
1568 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1569
1570 # pure perl
1571 my $signal = sig2name $arg{signal};
1572 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1573
1574 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
1575 local $!;
1576 syswrite $SIGPIPE_W, "\x00", 1 unless %SIG_EV;
1577 undef $SIG_EV{$signal};
1578 };
1579
1580 # can't do signal processing without introducing races in pure perl,
1581 # so limit the signal latency.
1582 _sig_add;
1583
1584 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1585 }
1586 ;
1587
1588 *AnyEvent::Base::signal::DESTROY = sub {
1589 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1590
1591 _sig_del;
1592
1593 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1594
1595 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1596 ? delete $SIG_ASY{$signal}
1597 : # delete doesn't work with older perls - they then
1598 # print weird messages, or just unconditionally exit
1599 # instead of getting the default action.
1600 undef $SIG{$signal}
1601 unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1602 };
1603
1604 *_signal_exec = sub {
1605 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1606 ? $SIGPIPE_R->drain
1607 : sysread $SIGPIPE_R, (my $dummy), 9;
1608
1609 while (%SIG_EV) {
1610 for (keys %SIG_EV) {
1611 delete $SIG_EV{$_};
1612 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$_} || {} };
1613 }
1614 }
1615 };
1616 };
1617 die if $@;
1618
1619 &signal
1620}
1621
1622# default implementation for ->child
1623
1624our %PID_CB;
1625our $CHLD_W;
1626our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1627our $WNOHANG;
1628
1629# used by many Impl's
1630sub _emit_childstatus($$) {
1631 my (undef, $rpid, $rstatus) = @_;
1632
1633 $_->($rpid, $rstatus)
1634 for values %{ $PID_CB{$rpid} || {} },
1635 values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} };
1636}
1637
1638sub child {
1639 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1640 *_sigchld = sub {
1641 my $pid;
1642
1643 AnyEvent->_emit_childstatus ($pid, $?)
1644 while ($pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG) > 0;
1645 };
1646
1647 *child = sub {
1648 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1649
1650 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
1651 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
1652
1653 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1654
1655 # WNOHANG is almost cetrainly 1 everywhere
1656 $WNOHANG ||= $^O =~ /^(?:openbsd|netbsd|linux|freebsd|cygwin|MSWin32)$/
1657 ? 1
1658 : eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
1659
1660 unless ($CHLD_W) {
1661 $CHLD_W = AE::signal CHLD => \&_sigchld;
1662 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1663 &_sigchld;
1664 }
1665
1666 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::child"
1667 };
1668
1669 *AnyEvent::Base::child::DESTROY = sub {
1670 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1671
1672 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
1673 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
1674
1675 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1676 };
1677 };
1678 die if $@;
1679
1680 &child
1681}
1682
1683# idle emulation is done by simply using a timer, regardless
1684# of whether the process is idle or not, and not letting
1685# the callback use more than 50% of the time.
1686sub idle {
1687 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1688 *idle = sub {
1689 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1690
1691 my ($cb, $w, $rcb) = $arg{cb};
1692
1693 $rcb = sub {
1694 if ($cb) {
1695 $w = _time;
1696 &$cb;
1697 $w = _time - $w;
1698
1699 # never use more then 50% of the time for the idle watcher,
1700 # within some limits
1701 $w = 0.0001 if $w < 0.0001;
1702 $w = 5 if $w > 5;
1703
1704 $w = AE::timer $w, 0, $rcb;
1705 } else {
1706 # clean up...
1707 undef $w;
1708 undef $rcb;
1709 }
1710 };
1711
1712 $w = AE::timer 0.05, 0, $rcb;
1713
1714 bless \\$cb, "AnyEvent::Base::idle"
1715 };
1716
1717 *AnyEvent::Base::idle::DESTROY = sub {
1718 undef $${$_[0]};
1719 };
1720 };
1721 die if $@;
1722
1723 &idle
1724}
1725
1726package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1727
1728our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1729
1730package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1731
1732#use overload
1733# '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1734# fallback => 1;
1735
1736# save 300+ kilobytes by dirtily hardcoding overloading
1737${"AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::OVERLOAD"}{dummy}++; # Register with magic by touching.
1738*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = sub { }; # "Make it findable via fetchmethod."
1739*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::(&{}'} = sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } }; # &{}
1740${'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = 1; # fallback
1741
1742our $WAITING;
1743
1744sub _send {
1745 # nop
1746}
1747
1748sub send {
1749 my $cv = shift;
1750 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1751 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1752 $cv->_send;
1753}
1754
1755sub croak {
1756 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1757 $_[0]->send;
1758}
1759
1760sub ready {
1761 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1762}
1763
1764sub _wait {
1765 $WAITING
1766 and !$_[0]{_ae_sent}
1767 and Carp::croak "AnyEvent::CondVar: recursive blocking wait detected";
1768
1769 local $WAITING = 1;
1770 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1771}
1772
1773sub recv {
1774 $_[0]->_wait;
1775
1776 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1777 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1778}
1779
1780sub cb {
1781 my $cv = shift;
1782
1783 @_
1784 and $cv->{_ae_cb} = shift
1785 and $cv->{_ae_sent}
1786 and (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv);
1787
1788 $cv->{_ae_cb}
1789}
1790
1791sub begin {
1792 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1793 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1794}
1795
1796sub end {
1797 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1798 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1799}
1800
1801# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1802*broadcast = \&send;
1803*wait = \&_wait;
1804
1805=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1806
1807In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1808caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1809the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1810checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1811development.
1812
1813As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1814executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1815also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1816program.
1817
1818The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1819within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1820$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1821so on.
1822
1823=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1824
1825The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1826submodules.
1827
1828Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
1829C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
1830enabled.
1831
1832=over 4
1833
1834=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1835
1836By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1837conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1838talkative.
1839
1840When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1841conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1842C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1843
1844When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1845model it chooses.
1846
1847When set to C<8> or higher, then AnyEvent will report extra information on
1848which optional modules it loads and how it implements certain features.
1849
1850=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1851
1852AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1853argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1854will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1855check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems,
1856it will croak.
1857
1858In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1859
1860Unlike C<use strict> (or its modern cousin, C<< use L<common::sense>
1861>>, it is definitely recommended to keep it off in production. Keeping
1862C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while developing programs
1863can be very useful, however.
1864
1865=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1866
1867This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1868auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1869entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1870and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1871used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1872auto detection and -probing.
1873
1874This functionality might change in future versions.
1875
1876For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1877could start your program like this:
1878
1879 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1880
1881=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1882
1883Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1884for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1885of auto probing).
1886
1887Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1888current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1889used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1890list.
1891
1892This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1893against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1894small, as the program has to handle conenction and other failures anyways.
1895
1896Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1897but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1898- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1899addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1900IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1901
1902=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1903
1904Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1905for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1906some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1907default.
1908
1909Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1910EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1911
1912=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1913
1914The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1915will create in parallel.
1916
1917=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_OUTSTANDING_DNS>
1918
1919The default value for the C<max_outstanding> parameter for the default DNS
1920resolver - this is the maximum number of parallel DNS requests that are
1921sent to the DNS server.
1922
1923=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_RESOLV_CONF>
1924
1925The file to use instead of F</etc/resolv.conf> (or OS-specific
1926configuration) in the default resolver. When set to the empty string, no
1927default config will be used.
1928
1929=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_FILE>, C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_PATH>.
1930
1931When neither C<ca_file> nor C<ca_path> was specified during
1932L<AnyEvent::TLS> context creation, and either of these environment
1933variables exist, they will be used to specify CA certificate locations
1934instead of a system-dependent default.
1935
1936=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_GUARD> and C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT>
1937
1938When these are set to C<1>, then the respective modules are not
1939loaded. Mostly good for testing AnyEvent itself.
1940
1941=back
1942
1943=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1944
1945This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1946a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1947provide AnyEvent compatibility.
1948
1949If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
1950supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
1951pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
1952the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
1953C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
1954AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
1955
1956Example:
1957
1958 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
1959
1960This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
1961package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1962
1963When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1964will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1965C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1966
1967The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1968L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1969and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1970see the sources.
1971
1972If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1973provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1974
1975The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
1976terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
1977in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
1978inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
1979I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
1980
1981I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1982condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1983C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1984not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1985
1986=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1987
1988The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1989to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1990program when the user enters quit:
1991
1992 use AnyEvent;
1993
1994 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1995
1996 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1997 fh => \*STDIN,
1998 poll => 'r',
1999 cb => sub {
2000 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
2001 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
2002 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
2003 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
2004 },
2005 );
2006
2007 my $time_watcher = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, interval => 1, cb => sub {
2008 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' at most every second
2009 });
2010
2011 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
2012
2013=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
2014
2015Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
2016API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
2017
2018 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
2019
2020 my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
2021 $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
2022 my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
2023
2024The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
2025given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
2026
2027 sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
2028
2029And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
2030L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
2031
2032More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
2033(completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
2034
2035 my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
2036
2037It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
2038of the request:
2039
2040 $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
2041
2042It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
2043
2044 socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
2045 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
2046 connect $txn->{fh}, ...
2047 and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
2048 and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
2049 and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
2050
2051Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
2052or the connection succeeds:
2053
2054 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
2055
2056And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
2057called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
2058writing.
2059
2060The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
2061request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
2062data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
2063this example:
2064
2065 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
2066 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
2067 or die "connection or write error";
2068 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
2069
2070Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
2071result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
2072
2073 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
2074
2075 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
2076 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
2077 $txn->{finished}->send;
2078 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
2079 }
2080
2081The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
2082request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
2083data:
2084
2085 $txn->{finished}->recv;
2086 return $txn->{result};
2087
2088The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
2089that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
2090whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
2091and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
2092problems get reported to the code that tries to use the result, not in a
2093random callback.
2094
2095All of this enables the following usage styles:
2096
20971. Blocking:
2098
2099 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
2100
21012. Blocking, but running in parallel:
2102
2103 my @datas = map $_->result,
2104 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
2105 @urls;
2106
2107Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
2108anything about events.
2109
21103a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
2111
2112 use EV;
2113
2114 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
2115 my $txn = shift;
2116 my $data = $txn->result;
16 ... 2117 ...
17 }); 2118 });
18 2119
19 # watchers get canceled whenever $w is destroyed 2120 EV::loop;
20 # only one watcher per $fh and $poll type is allowed
21 # (i.e. on a socket you cna have one r + one w or one rw
22 # watcher, not any more.
23 # timers can only be used once
24 2121
25 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # kind of main loop replacement 21223b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
26 # can only be used once
27 $w->wait; # enters main loop till $condvar gets ->send
28 $w->broadcast; # wake up waiting and future wait's
29 2123
30=head1 DESCRIPTION 2124 use AnyEvent;
31 2125
32L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 2126 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
33allows module authors to utilizy an event loop without forcing module
34users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
35peacefully at any one time).
36 2127
37The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 2128 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
38module. 2129 ...
2130 $quit->send;
2131 });
39 2132
40On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 2133 $quit->recv;
41loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 2134
42loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 2135
43used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 2136=head1 BENCHMARKS
44order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 2137
45used. If still none could be found, it will issue an error. 2138To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
2139over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
2140of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
2141
2142=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
2143
2144Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
2145through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
2146timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
2147which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
2148
2149Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
2150distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2151for the EV and Perl backends only.
2152
2153=head3 Explanation of the columns
2154
2155I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
2156different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
2157loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
2158and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
2159would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
2160of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
2161
2162I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
2163RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
2164and Perl-based overheads.
2165
2166I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
2167takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
2168all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
2169and memory usage is not included in the figures.
2170
2171I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
2172callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
2173invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
2174signal the end of this phase.
2175
2176I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
2177watcher.
2178
2179=head3 Results
2180
2181 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
2182 EV/EV 100000 223 0.47 0.43 0.27 EV native interface
2183 EV/Any 100000 223 0.48 0.42 0.26 EV + AnyEvent watchers
2184 Coro::EV/Any 100000 223 0.47 0.42 0.26 coroutines + Coro::Signal
2185 Perl/Any 100000 431 2.70 0.74 0.92 pure perl implementation
2186 Event/Event 16000 516 31.16 31.84 0.82 Event native interface
2187 Event/Any 16000 1203 42.61 34.79 1.80 Event + AnyEvent watchers
2188 IOAsync/Any 16000 1911 41.92 27.45 16.81 via IO::Async::Loop::IO_Poll
2189 IOAsync/Any 16000 1726 40.69 26.37 15.25 via IO::Async::Loop::Epoll
2190 Glib/Any 16000 1118 89.00 12.57 51.17 quadratic behaviour
2191 Tk/Any 2000 1346 20.96 10.75 8.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
2192 POE/Any 2000 6951 108.97 795.32 14.24 via POE::Loop::Event
2193 POE/Any 2000 6648 94.79 774.40 575.51 via POE::Loop::Select
2194
2195=head3 Discussion
2196
2197The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
2198well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
2199can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
2200file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
2201the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
2202boost.
2203
2204Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
2205overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
2206the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
2207higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
2208
2209To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
2210benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
2211EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
2212cycles with POE.
2213
2214C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
2215maximal/minimal, respectively. When using the L<AE> API there is zero
2216overhead (when going through the AnyEvent API create is about 5-6 times
2217slower, with other times being equal, so still uses far less memory than
2218any other event loop and is still faster than Event natively).
2219
2220The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
2221constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
2222interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
2223adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
2224performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
2225them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
2226
2227The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
2228cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
2229
2230C<IO::Async> performs admirably well, about on par with C<Event>, even
2231when using its pure perl backend.
2232
2233C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
2234faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
2235C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
2236watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
2237making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
2238(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
2239inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
2240
2241The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
2242more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
2243precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
2244file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
2245employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
2246hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
2247above).
2248
2249C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
2250select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
2251be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
2252memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
2253as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
2254requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
2255invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
2256implementation.
2257
2258The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
2259for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
2260small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
2261optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
2262using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
2263memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
2264design).
2265
2266=head3 Summary
46 2267
47=over 4 2268=over 4
48 2269
2270=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
2271(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
2272performance with or without AnyEvent.
2273
2274=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
2275the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
2276adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
2277
2278=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
2279reasonable memory usage.
2280
2281=back
2282
2283=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
2284
2285This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
2286creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
2287timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
2288watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
2289watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
2290
2291The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
2292are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
2293fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
2294timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
2295most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
2296
2297In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
2298(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
2299connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
2300
2301Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
2302distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2303for the EV and Perl backends only.
2304
2305=head3 Explanation of the columns
2306
2307I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
2308each server has a read and write socket end).
2309
2310I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
2311nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
2312
2313I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
2314single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
2315it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
2316a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
2317
2318=head3 Results
2319
2320 name sockets create request
2321 EV 20000 62.66 7.99
2322 Perl 20000 68.32 32.64
2323 IOAsync 20000 174.06 101.15 epoll
2324 IOAsync 20000 174.67 610.84 poll
2325 Event 20000 202.69 242.91
2326 Glib 20000 557.01 1689.52
2327 POE 20000 341.54 12086.32 uses POE::Loop::Event
2328
2329=head3 Discussion
2330
2331This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
2332particular event loop.
2333
2334EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
2335is relatively high, though.
2336
2337Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
2338loops Event and Glib.
2339
2340IO::Async performs very well when using its epoll backend, and still quite
2341good compared to Glib when using its pure perl backend.
2342
2343Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
2344understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
2345the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
2346uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
2347
2348Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
2349clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
2350
2351POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
2352as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
2353it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
2354
2355=head3 Summary
2356
2357=over 4
2358
2359=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
2360
2361=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
2362
2363=back
2364
2365=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
2366
2367While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
2368large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
2369I/O watchers.
2370
2371In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
2372case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
2373one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
2374well.
2375
2376The columns are identical to the previous table.
2377
2378=head3 Results
2379
2380 name sockets create request
2381 EV 16 20.00 6.54
2382 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
2383 Event 16 81.27 35.86
2384 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
2385 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
2386
2387=head3 Discussion
2388
2389The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
2390server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
2391in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
2392to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
2393speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
2394them).
2395
2396EV is again fastest.
2397
2398Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
2399loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
2400matter.
2401
2402POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
2403others.
2404
2405=head3 Summary
2406
2407=over 4
2408
2409=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
2410watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
2411
2412=back
2413
2414=head2 THE IO::Lambda BENCHMARK
2415
2416Recently I was told about the benchmark in the IO::Lambda manpage, which
2417could be misinterpreted to make AnyEvent look bad. In fact, the benchmark
2418simply compares IO::Lambda with POE, and IO::Lambda looks better (which
2419shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody). As such, the benchmark is
2420fine, and mostly shows that the AnyEvent backend from IO::Lambda isn't
2421very optimal. But how would AnyEvent compare when used without the extra
2422baggage? To explore this, I wrote the equivalent benchmark for AnyEvent.
2423
2424The benchmark itself creates an echo-server, and then, for 500 times,
2425connects to the echo server, sends a line, waits for the reply, and then
2426creates the next connection. This is a rather bad benchmark, as it doesn't
2427test the efficiency of the framework or much non-blocking I/O, but it is a
2428benchmark nevertheless.
2429
2430 name runtime
2431 Lambda/select 0.330 sec
2432 + optimized 0.122 sec
2433 Lambda/AnyEvent 0.327 sec
2434 + optimized 0.138 sec
2435 Raw sockets/select 0.077 sec
2436 POE/select, components 0.662 sec
2437 POE/select, raw sockets 0.226 sec
2438 POE/select, optimized 0.404 sec
2439
2440 AnyEvent/select/nb 0.085 sec
2441 AnyEvent/EV/nb 0.068 sec
2442 +state machine 0.134 sec
2443
2444The benchmark is also a bit unfair (my fault): the IO::Lambda/POE
2445benchmarks actually make blocking connects and use 100% blocking I/O,
2446defeating the purpose of an event-based solution. All of the newly
2447written AnyEvent benchmarks use 100% non-blocking connects (using
2448AnyEvent::Socket::tcp_connect and the asynchronous pure perl DNS
2449resolver), so AnyEvent is at a disadvantage here, as non-blocking connects
2450generally require a lot more bookkeeping and event handling than blocking
2451connects (which involve a single syscall only).
2452
2453The last AnyEvent benchmark additionally uses L<AnyEvent::Handle>, which
2454offers similar expressive power as POE and IO::Lambda, using conventional
2455Perl syntax. This means that both the echo server and the client are 100%
2456non-blocking, further placing it at a disadvantage.
2457
2458As you can see, the AnyEvent + EV combination even beats the
2459hand-optimised "raw sockets benchmark", while AnyEvent + its pure perl
2460backend easily beats IO::Lambda and POE.
2461
2462And even the 100% non-blocking version written using the high-level (and
2463slow :) L<AnyEvent::Handle> abstraction beats both POE and IO::Lambda
2464higher level ("unoptimised") abstractions by a large margin, even though
2465it does all of DNS, tcp-connect and socket I/O in a non-blocking way.
2466
2467The two AnyEvent benchmarks programs can be found as F<eg/ae0.pl> and
2468F<eg/ae2.pl> in the AnyEvent distribution, the remaining benchmarks are
2469part of the IO::Lambda distribution and were used without any changes.
2470
2471
2472=head1 SIGNALS
2473
2474AnyEvent currently installs handlers for these signals:
2475
2476=over 4
2477
2478=item SIGCHLD
2479
2480A handler for C<SIGCHLD> is installed by AnyEvent's child watcher
2481emulation for event loops that do not support them natively. Also, some
2482event loops install a similar handler.
2483
2484Additionally, when AnyEvent is loaded and SIGCHLD is set to IGNORE, then
2485AnyEvent will reset it to default, to avoid losing child exit statuses.
2486
2487=item SIGPIPE
2488
2489A no-op handler is installed for C<SIGPIPE> when C<$SIG{PIPE}> is C<undef>
2490when AnyEvent gets loaded.
2491
2492The rationale for this is that AnyEvent users usually do not really depend
2493on SIGPIPE delivery (which is purely an optimisation for shell use, or
2494badly-written programs), but C<SIGPIPE> can cause spurious and rare
2495program exits as a lot of people do not expect C<SIGPIPE> when writing to
2496some random socket.
2497
2498The rationale for installing a no-op handler as opposed to ignoring it is
2499that this way, the handler will be restored to defaults on exec.
2500
2501Feel free to install your own handler, or reset it to defaults.
2502
2503=back
2504
49=cut 2505=cut
50 2506
51package AnyEvent; 2507undef $SIG{CHLD}
2508 if $SIG{CHLD} eq 'IGNORE';
52 2509
53no warnings; 2510$SIG{PIPE} = sub { }
54use strict 'vars'; 2511 unless defined $SIG{PIPE};
55use Carp;
56 2512
57our $VERSION = 0.2; 2513=head1 RECOMMENDED/OPTIONAL MODULES
58our $MODEL;
59 2514
60our $AUTOLOAD; 2515One of AnyEvent's main goals is to be 100% Pure-Perl(tm): only perl (and
61our @ISA; 2516its built-in modules) are required to use it.
62 2517
63my @models = ( 2518That does not mean that AnyEvent won't take advantage of some additional
64 [Coro => Coro::Event::], 2519modules if they are installed.
65 [Event => Event::],
66 [Glib => Glib::],
67 [Tk => Tk::],
68);
69 2520
70our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait cancel DESTROY); 2521This section explains which additional modules will be used, and how they
2522affect AnyEvent's operation.
71 2523
72sub AUTOLOAD { 2524=over 4
73 $AUTOLOAD =~ s/.*://;
74 2525
75 $method{$AUTOLOAD} 2526=item L<Async::Interrupt>
76 or croak "$AUTOLOAD: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
77 2527
78 unless ($MODEL) { 2528This slightly arcane module is used to implement fast signal handling: To
79 # check for already loaded models 2529my knowledge, there is no way to do completely race-free and quick
80 for (@models) { 2530signal handling in pure perl. To ensure that signals still get
81 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 2531delivered, AnyEvent will start an interval timer to wake up perl (and
82 if (scalar keys %{ *{"$package\::"} }) { 2532catch the signals) with some delay (default is 10 seconds, look for
83 eval "require AnyEvent::Impl::$model"; 2533C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>).
84 last if $MODEL;
85 }
86 }
87 2534
88 unless ($MODEL) { 2535If this module is available, then it will be used to implement signal
89 # try to load a model 2536catching, which means that signals will not be delayed, and the event loop
2537will not be interrupted regularly, which is more efficient (and good for
2538battery life on laptops).
90 2539
91 for (@models) { 2540This affects not just the pure-perl event loop, but also other event loops
92 my ($model, $package) = @$_; 2541that have no signal handling on their own (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt).
93 eval "require AnyEvent::Impl::$model";
94 last if $MODEL;
95 }
96 2542
97 $MODEL 2543Some event loops (POE, Event, Event::Lib) offer signal watchers natively,
98 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Coro, Event, Glib or Tk."; 2544and either employ their own workarounds (POE) or use AnyEvent's workaround
99 } 2545(using C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>). Installing L<Async::Interrupt>
100 } 2546does nothing for those backends.
101 2547
102 @ISA = $MODEL; 2548=item L<EV>
103 2549
104 my $class = shift; 2550This module isn't really "optional", as it is simply one of the backend
105 $class->$AUTOLOAD (@_); 2551event loops that AnyEvent can use. However, it is simply the best event
106} 2552loop available in terms of features, speed and stability: It supports
2553the AnyEvent API optimally, implements all the watcher types in XS, does
2554automatic timer adjustments even when no monotonic clock is available,
2555can take avdantage of advanced kernel interfaces such as C<epoll> and
2556C<kqueue>, and is the fastest backend I<by far>. You can even embed
2557L<Glib>/L<Gtk2> in it (or vice versa, see L<EV::Glib> and L<Glib::EV>).
2558
2559If you only use backends that rely on another event loop (e.g. C<Tk>),
2560then this module will do nothing for you.
2561
2562=item L<Guard>
2563
2564The guard module, when used, will be used to implement
2565C<AnyEvent::Util::guard>. This speeds up guards considerably (and uses a
2566lot less memory), but otherwise doesn't affect guard operation much. It is
2567purely used for performance.
2568
2569=item L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS>
2570
2571One of these modules is required when you want to read or write JSON data
2572via L<AnyEvent::Handle>. L<JSON> is also written in pure-perl, but can take
2573advantage of the ultra-high-speed L<JSON::XS> module when it is installed.
2574
2575=item L<Net::SSLeay>
2576
2577Implementing TLS/SSL in Perl is certainly interesting, but not very
2578worthwhile: If this module is installed, then L<AnyEvent::Handle> (with
2579the help of L<AnyEvent::TLS>), gains the ability to do TLS/SSL.
2580
2581=item L<Time::HiRes>
2582
2583This module is part of perl since release 5.008. It will be used when the
2584chosen event library does not come with a timing source of its own. The
2585pure-perl event loop (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) will additionally use it to
2586try to use a monotonic clock for timing stability.
107 2587
108=back 2588=back
109 2589
110=head1 EXAMPLE
111 2590
112The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 2591=head1 FORK
113to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program
114when the user enters quit:
115 2592
2593Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
2594because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll> calls
2595- higher performance APIs such as BSD's kqueue or the dreaded Linux epoll
2596are usually badly thought-out hacks that are incompatible with fork in
2597one way or another. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware and ensures that you
2598continue event-processing in both parent and child (or both, if you know
2599what you are doing).
2600
2601This means that, in general, you cannot fork and do event processing in
2602the child if the event library was initialised before the fork (which
2603usually happens when the first AnyEvent watcher is created, or the library
2604is loaded).
2605
2606If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
2607watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child OR you must do
2608something completely out of the scope of AnyEvent.
2609
2610The problem of doing event processing in the parent I<and> the child
2611is much more complicated: even for backends that I<are> fork-aware or
2612fork-safe, their behaviour is not usually what you want: fork clones all
2613watchers, that means all timers, I/O watchers etc. are active in both
2614parent and child, which is almost never what you want. USing C<exec>
2615to start worker children from some kind of manage rprocess is usually
2616preferred, because it is much easier and cleaner, at the expense of having
2617to have another binary.
2618
2619
2620=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
2621
2622AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
2623$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
2624execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
2625make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
2626will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
2627specified in the variable.
2628
2629You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
2630before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
2631
2632 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
2633
116 use AnyEvent; 2634 use AnyEvent;
117 2635
118 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 2636Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
2637be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
2638probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
2639$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT}.
119 2640
120 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 2641Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
121 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 2642C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
122 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 2643enabled.
123 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
124 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
125 });
126 2644
127 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
128 2645
129 sub new_timer { 2646=head1 BUGS
130 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
131 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
132 &new_timer; # and restart the time
133 });
134 }
135 2647
136 new_timer; # create first timer 2648Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
2649to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
2650and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
2651memleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
2652pronounced).
137 2653
138 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i
139 2654
140=head1 SEE ALSO 2655=head1 SEE ALSO
141 2656
142L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, 2657Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
143L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, 2658
144L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, 2659Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
145L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, 2660L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
2661
2662Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
2663L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
2664L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
2665L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync>, L<Anyevent::Impl::Irssi>.
2666
2667Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
2668servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>, L<AnyEvent::TLS>.
2669
2670Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
2671
2672Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>,
2673L<Coro::Event>,
2674
2675Nontrivial usage examples: L<AnyEvent::GPSD>, L<AnyEvent::XMPP>,
146L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 2676L<AnyEvent::HTTP>.
147 2677
148=head1 2678
2679=head1 AUTHOR
2680
2681 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
2682 http://home.schmorp.de/
149 2683
150=cut 2684=cut
151 2685
1521 26861
153 2687

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