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Revision 1.196 by root, Thu Mar 26 07:47:42 2009 UTC

1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops 3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4 4
5Event, Coro, Glib, Tk, Perl - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6 6
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 7=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 8
9 use AnyEvent; 9 use AnyEvent;
10 10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub { 11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub { ... });
12
13 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { ... });
14 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, interval => $seconds, cb => ...
15
16 print AnyEvent->now; # prints current event loop time
17 print AnyEvent->time; # think Time::HiRes::time or simply CORE::time.
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "TERM", cb => sub { ... });
20
21 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
22 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
12 ... 23 ...
13 }); 24 });
14 25
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 ...
17 });
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores wether a condition was flagged 26 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
27 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
20 $w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast 28 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
21 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's 29 # use a condvar in callback mode:
30 $w->cb (sub { $_[0]->recv });
31
32=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
33
34This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
35in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
36L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
37
38=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
39
40Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
41nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
42
43Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
44policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
45
46First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
47interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use, in a
48pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
49the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
50only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
51cannot change this, but it can hide the differences between those event
52loops.
53
54The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
55programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
56religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
57module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
58model you use.
59
60For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
61actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
62like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
63cannot use anything else, as they are simply incompatible to everything
64that isn't them. What's worse, all the potential users of your
65module are I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
66
67AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
68fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
69with the rest: POE + IO::Async? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if
70your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
71too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
72event models it supports (including stuff like IO::Async, as long as those
73use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new event loops
74to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
75
76In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
77model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
78modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
79follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
80offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
81technically possible.
82
83Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
84of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
85non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
86such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
87platform bugs and differences.
88
89Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
90useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
91model, you should I<not> use this module.
22 92
23=head1 DESCRIPTION 93=head1 DESCRIPTION
24 94
25L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 95L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
26allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module 96allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
27users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist 97users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
28peacefully at any one time). 98peacefully at any one time).
29 99
30The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 100The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
31module. 101module.
32 102
33On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 103During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
34loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 104to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
35loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 105following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
36used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 106L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
37order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 107L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
38used. If still none could be found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl 108to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
39event loop, which is also not very efficient. 109adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
110be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
111found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
112very efficient, but should work everywhere.
40 113
41Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading 114Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
42an Event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make 115an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
43that model the default. For example: 116that model the default. For example:
44 117
45 use Tk; 118 use Tk;
46 use AnyEvent; 119 use AnyEvent;
47 120
48 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk 121 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
49 122
123The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
124starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
125use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
126
50The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called 127The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
51C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it 128C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
52explicitly. 129explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
53 130
54=head1 WATCHERS 131=head1 WATCHERS
55 132
56AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that 133AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
57stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as 134stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
58the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc. 135the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
59 136
60These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After 137These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
61creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke 138creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
139callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
140is in control).
141
142Note that B<callbacks must not permanently change global variables>
143potentially in use by the event loop (such as C<$_> or C<$[>) and that B<<
144callbacks must not C<die> >>. The former is good programming practise in
145Perl and the latter stems from the fact that exception handling differs
146widely between event loops.
147
62the callback. To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by 148To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
63setting the variable that stores it to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all 149variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
64references to it). 150to it).
65 151
66All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class. 152All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
67 153
154Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
155example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
156
157An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
158
159 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
160 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
161 undef $w;
162 });
163
164Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
165my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
166declared.
167
68=head2 IO WATCHERS 168=head2 I/O WATCHERS
69 169
70You can create I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method with 170You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
71the following mandatory arguments: 171with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
72 172
73C<fh> the Perl I<filehandle> (not filedescriptor) to watch for 173C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch for events
174(AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file handle). C<poll>
74events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, that creates 175must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a watcher
75a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events. C<cb> teh callback 176waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively. C<cb> is the
76to invoke everytime the filehandle becomes ready. 177callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
77 178
78Only one io watcher per C<fh> and C<poll> combination is allowed (i.e. on 179Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
79a socket you can have one r + one w, not any more (limitation comes from 180presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
80Tk - if you are sure you are not using Tk this limitation is gone). 181callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
81 182
82Filehandles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the 183The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
83filehandle exists, too. 184You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
185underlying file descriptor.
84 186
85Example: 187Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
188always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
189handles.
86 190
87 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher 191Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
192watcher.
193
88 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 194 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
89 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); 195 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
90 warn "read: $input\n"; 196 warn "read: $input\n";
91 undef $w; 197 undef $w;
92 }); 198 });
94=head2 TIME WATCHERS 200=head2 TIME WATCHERS
95 201
96You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >> 202You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
97method with the following mandatory arguments: 203method with the following mandatory arguments:
98 204
99C<after> after how many seconds (fractions are supported) should the timer 205C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
100activate. C<cb> the callback to invoke. 206supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
207in that case.
101 208
102The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating 209Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
103timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk 210presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
104and Glib). 211callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
105 212
106Example: 213The callback will normally be invoked once only. If you specify another
214parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
215callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
216seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
217false value, then it is treated as if it were missing.
107 218
219The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
220attempt is done to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
221only approximate.
222
108 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds 223Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
224
109 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub { 225 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
110 warn "timeout\n"; 226 warn "timeout\n";
111 }); 227 });
112 228
113 # to cancel the timer: 229 # to cancel the timer:
114 undef $w 230 undef $w;
115 231
116=head2 CONDITION WATCHERS 232Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
117 233
118Condition watchers can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >> 234 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
119method without any arguments. 235 warn "timeout\n";
236 };
120 237
121A condition watcher watches for a condition - precisely that the C<< 238=head3 TIMING ISSUES
122->broadcast >> method has been called.
123 239
124The watcher has only two methods: 240There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
241in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
242o'clock").
243
244While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
245use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
246"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
247the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
248fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
249
250AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
251about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
252on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
253timers.
254
255AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
256AnyEvent API.
257
258AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
125 259
126=over 4 260=over 4
127 261
128=item $cv->wait 262=item AnyEvent->time
129 263
130Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been 264This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
131called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally. 265seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
266return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
132 267
133Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case, so 268It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
134if you are using this from a module, never require a blocking wait, but 269will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
135let the caller decide wether the call will block or not (for example,
136by coupling condition variables with some kind of request results and
137supporting callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not
138block, while still suppporting blockign waits if the caller so desires).
139 270
140You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return 271=item AnyEvent->now
141immediately.
142 272
143=item $cv->broadcast 273This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
274this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
275the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
276time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
144 277
145Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->wait >> and all further 278I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
146calls to C<wait> will return after this method has been called. If nobody 279function to call when you want to know the current time.>
147is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
148 280
149Example: 281This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
282thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
283L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update it's activity timeouts).
284
285The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
286with your timing, you can skip it without bad conscience.
287
288For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
289and L<EV> and the following set-up:
290
291The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callback at
292time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
293you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
294second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
295after three seconds.
296
297With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
298both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
299be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
300
301With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
302time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
303last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
304to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
305
306In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
307regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
308callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
309higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
310
311In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
312the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
313
314In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
315can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
316difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
317account.
318
319=back
320
321=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
322
323You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
324I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
325callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
326
327Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
328presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
329callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
330
331Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
332invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
333that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
334but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
335
336The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
337between multiple watchers.
338
339This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
340directly will likely not work correctly.
341
342Example: exit on SIGINT
343
344 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
345
346=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
347
348You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
349
350The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
351watches for any child process exit). The watcher will triggered only when
352the child process has finished and an exit status is available, not on
353any trace events (stopped/continued).
354
355The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
356waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
357callback arguments.
358
359This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
360and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
361random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
362C<system>, is just fine).
363
364There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
365I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
366have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
367
368Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
369event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
370loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
371
372This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
373AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
374C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
375
376Example: fork a process and wait for it
377
378 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
379
380 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
381
382 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
383 pid => $pid,
384 cb => sub {
385 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
386 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
387 $done->send;
388 },
389 );
390
391 # do something else, then wait for process exit
392 $done->recv;
393
394=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
395
396If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
397require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
398will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
399
400AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
401will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
402
403The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
404because they represent a condition that must become true.
405
406Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
407>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
408
409C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
410becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
411the results).
412
413After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
414by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
415were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
416->send >> method).
417
418Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
419optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
420in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
421another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
422used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
423a result.
424
425Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
426for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
427then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
428availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
429called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
430
431You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
432you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
433could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
434button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
435
436Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
437two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
438lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
439you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
440as this asks for trouble.
441
442Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
443used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
444easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
445AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
446it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
447
448There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
449eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
450for the send to occur.
451
452Example: wait for a timer.
150 453
151 # wait till the result is ready 454 # wait till the result is ready
152 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar; 455 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
153 456
154 # do something such as adding a timer 457 # do something such as adding a timer
155 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast 458 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
156 # when the "result" is ready. 459 # when the "result" is ready.
460 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
461 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
462 after => 1,
463 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
464 );
157 465
466 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
467 # calls send
158 $result_ready->wait; 468 $result_ready->recv;
469
470Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that
471condition variables are also code references.
472
473 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
474 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
475 $done->recv;
476
477Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
478callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
479the main program:
480
481 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
482
483 ...
484
485 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
486
487And this is how you would just ste a callback to be called whenever the
488results are available:
489
490 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
491 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
492 });
493
494=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
495
496These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
497code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
498the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
499uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
500
501=over 4
502
503=item $cv->send (...)
504
505Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
506calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
507called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
508
509If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
510immediately from within send.
511
512Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
513future C<< ->recv >> calls.
514
515Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly
516(as a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
517C<send>. Note, however, that many C-based event loops do not handle
518overloading, so as tempting as it may be, passing a condition variable
519instead of a callback does not work. Both the pure perl and EV loops
520support overloading, however, as well as all functions that use perl to
521invoke a callback (as in L<AnyEvent::Socket> and L<AnyEvent::DNS> for
522example).
523
524=item $cv->croak ($error)
525
526Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
527C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
528
529This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
530user/consumer.
531
532=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
533
534=item $cv->end
535
536These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
537
538These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
539one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
540to use a condition variable for the whole process.
541
542Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
543C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
544>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
545is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
546callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
547
548Let's clarify this with the ping example:
549
550 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
551
552 my %result;
553 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
554
555 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
556 $cv->begin;
557 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
558 $result{$host} = ...;
559 $cv->end;
560 };
561 }
562
563 $cv->end;
564
565This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
566C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
567order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
568each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
569it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
570results arrive is not relevant.
571
572There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
573loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
574to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
575C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
576doesn't execute once).
577
578This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
579use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
580is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
581C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
159 582
160=back 583=back
161 584
162=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS 585=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
163 586
164You can listen for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal 587These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
165I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix. Multiple signals events can be clumped 588code awaits the condition.
166together into one callback invocation, and callback invocation might or
167might not be asynchronous.
168 589
169These watchers might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals 590=over 4
170directly will likely not work correctly.
171 591
172Example: exit on SIGINT 592=item $cv->recv
173 593
174 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 }); 594Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
595>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
596normally.
175 597
176=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS 598You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
599will return immediately.
177 600
178You can also listen for the status of a child process specified by the 601If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
179C<pid> argument (or any child if the pid argument is 0). The watcher will 602function will call C<croak>.
180trigger as often as status change for the child are received. This works
181by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>.
182 603
183Example: wait for pid 1333 604In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
605in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
184 606
185 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => 1333, cb => sub { warn "exit status $?" }); 607Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
608(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
609using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
610caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
611condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
612callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
613while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
186 614
187=head1 GLOBALS 615Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
616sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
617multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
618can supply.
619
620The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
621fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
622versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
623C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
624coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
625
626You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
627only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
628time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
629waits otherwise.
630
631=item $bool = $cv->ready
632
633Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
634C<croak> have been called.
635
636=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
637
638This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
639replaces it before doing so.
640
641The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
642C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the condition
643variable itself. Calling C<recv> inside the callback or at any later time
644is guaranteed not to block.
645
646=back
647
648=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
188 649
189=over 4 650=over 4
190 651
191=item $AnyEvent::MODEL 652=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
192 653
196C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case 657C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
197AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>). 658AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
198 659
199The known classes so far are: 660The known classes so far are:
200 661
201 EV::AnyEvent based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice) 662 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
202 AnyEvent::Impl::Coro based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
203 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also second best choice :) 663 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
664 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
204 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, second-best choice. 665 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
205 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice. 666 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
206 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient. 667 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
668 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
669 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
670
671There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
672watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
673POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
674second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
675AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
676it's adaptor.
677
678AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
679autodetecting them.
207 680
208=item AnyEvent::detect 681=item AnyEvent::detect
209 682
210Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model if 683Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
211necessary. You should only call this function right before you would have 684if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
212created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, very late at runtime. 685have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
686runtime.
687
688=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
689
690Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
691autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
692
693If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
694that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
695L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
696
697=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
698
699If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
700before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
701the event loop has been chosen.
702
703You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
704if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
705and the array will be ignored.
706
707Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
213 708
214=back 709=back
215 710
216=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE 711=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
217 712
218As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods 713As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
219freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it. 714freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
220 715
221Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will 716Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
222decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so 717decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
223by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module 718by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
224to load the event module first. 719to load the event module first.
225 720
721Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
722the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
723because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
724events is to stay interactive.
725
726It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
727requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
728called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
729freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
730
226=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM 731=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
227 732
228There will always be a single main program - the only place that should 733There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
229dictate which event model to use. 734dictate which event model to use.
230 735
231If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not 736If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
232do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to chose. 737do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
738decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
233 739
234If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in Gtk2 740If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
235programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you should load 741Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
236it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it, generally, as early 742event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
237as possible. The reason is that modules might create watchers when they 743speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
238are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event model to use as soon as 744modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
239it creates watchers, and it might chose the wrong one unless you load the 745decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
240correct one yourself. 746might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
241 747
242You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by 748You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
243loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, but letting AnyEvent chose is 749C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
244generally better. 750everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
751
752=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
753
754Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
755only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
756
757In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
758
759 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
760
761This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
762
763Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
764it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
765variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
766exit cleanly.
767
768
769=head1 OTHER MODULES
770
771The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
772AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
773in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
774available via CPAN.
775
776=over 4
777
778=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
779
780Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
781functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
782
783=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
784
785Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
786addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
787connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
788
789=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
790
791Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
792supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
793non-blocking SSL/TLS.
794
795=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
796
797Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
798
799=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
800
801A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
802HTTP requests.
803
804=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
805
806Provides a simple web application server framework.
807
808=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
809
810The fastest ping in the west.
811
812=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
813
814Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
815
816=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
817
818Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
819programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
820together.
821
822=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
823
824Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
825L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
826
827=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
828
829A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
830
831=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
832
833A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
834L<App::IGS>).
835
836=item L<AnyEvent::IRC>
837
838AnyEvent based IRC client module family (replacing the older Net::IRC3).
839
840=item L<Net::XMPP2>
841
842AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
843
844=item L<Net::FCP>
845
846AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
847of AnyEvent.
848
849=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
850
851High level API for event-based execution flow control.
852
853=item L<Coro>
854
855Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
856
857=item L<IO::Lambda>
858
859The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
860
861=back
245 862
246=cut 863=cut
247 864
248package AnyEvent; 865package AnyEvent;
249 866
250no warnings; 867no warnings;
251use strict; 868use strict qw(vars subs);
252 869
253use Carp; 870use Carp;
254 871
255our $VERSION = '2.55'; 872our $VERSION = 4.341;
256our $MODEL; 873our $MODEL;
257 874
258our $AUTOLOAD; 875our $AUTOLOAD;
259our @ISA; 876our @ISA;
260 877
878our @REGISTRY;
879
880our $WIN32;
881
882BEGIN {
883 my $win32 = ! ! ($^O =~ /mswin32/i);
884 eval "sub WIN32(){ $win32 }";
885}
886
261our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1; 887our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
262 888
263our @REGISTRY; 889our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
890
891{
892 my $idx;
893 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
894 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
895 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
896}
264 897
265my @models = ( 898my @models = (
266 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Coro::],
267 [EV:: => EV::AnyEvent::], 899 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
268 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], 900 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
269 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
270 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
271 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::], 901 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
902 # everything below here will not be autoprobed
903 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
904 # and is usually faster
905 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
906 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
907 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
908 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
909 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
910 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
911 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
272); 912);
273 913
274our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait signal one_event DESTROY); 914our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer time now signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
915
916our @post_detect;
917
918sub post_detect(&) {
919 my ($cb) = @_;
920
921 if ($MODEL) {
922 $cb->();
923
924 1
925 } else {
926 push @post_detect, $cb;
927
928 defined wantarray
929 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
930 : ()
931 }
932}
933
934sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
935 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
936}
275 937
276sub detect() { 938sub detect() {
277 unless ($MODEL) { 939 unless ($MODEL) {
278 no strict 'refs'; 940 no strict 'refs';
941 local $SIG{__DIE__};
942
943 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
944 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
945 if (eval "require $model") {
946 $MODEL = $model;
947 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
948 } else {
949 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
950 }
951 }
279 952
280 # check for already loaded models 953 # check for already loaded models
954 unless ($MODEL) {
281 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 955 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
282 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 956 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
283 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 957 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
284 if (eval "require $model") { 958 if (eval "require $model") {
285 $MODEL = $model; 959 $MODEL = $model;
286 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1; 960 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
287 last; 961 last;
962 }
288 } 963 }
289 } 964 }
965
966 unless ($MODEL) {
967 # try to load a model
968
969 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
970 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
971 if (eval "require $package"
972 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
973 and eval "require $model") {
974 $MODEL = $model;
975 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
976 last;
977 }
978 }
979
980 $MODEL
981 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
982 }
290 } 983 }
291 984
292 unless ($MODEL) { 985 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
293 # try to load a model
294
295 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
296 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
297 if (eval "require $package"
298 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
299 and eval "require $model") {
300 $MODEL = $model;
301 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
302 last;
303 }
304 }
305
306 $MODEL
307 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Event (or Coro+Event), Glib or Tk.";
308 }
309 986
310 unshift @ISA, $MODEL; 987 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
311 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base"; 988
989 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
990
991 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
312 } 992 }
313 993
314 $MODEL 994 $MODEL
315} 995}
316 996
324 1004
325 my $class = shift; 1005 my $class = shift;
326 $class->$func (@_); 1006 $class->$func (@_);
327} 1007}
328 1008
1009# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1010# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1011# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1012sub _dupfh($$$$) {
1013 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1014
1015 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1016 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<")
1017 : $poll eq "w" ? ($w, ">")
1018 : Carp::croak "AnyEvent->io requires poll set to either 'r' or 'w'";
1019
1020 open my $fh2, "$mode&" . fileno $fh
1021 or die "cannot dup() filehandle: $!";
1022
1023 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1024
1025 ($fh2, $rw)
1026}
1027
329package AnyEvent::Base; 1028package AnyEvent::Base;
330 1029
1030# default implementation for now and time
1031
1032BEGIN {
1033 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); time (); 1") {
1034 *_time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1035 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1036 } else {
1037 *_time = sub { time }; # epic fail
1038 }
1039}
1040
1041sub time { _time }
1042sub now { _time }
1043
331# default implementation for ->condvar, ->wait, ->broadcast 1044# default implementation for ->condvar
332 1045
333sub condvar { 1046sub condvar {
334 bless \my $flag, "AnyEvent::Base::CondVar" 1047 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
335}
336
337sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::broadcast {
338 ${$_[0]}++;
339}
340
341sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::wait {
342 AnyEvent->one_event while !${$_[0]};
343} 1048}
344 1049
345# default implementation for ->signal 1050# default implementation for ->signal
346 1051
347our %SIG_CB; 1052our ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W, %SIG_CB, %SIG_EV, $SIG_IO);
1053
1054sub _signal_exec {
1055 while (%SIG_EV) {
1056 sysread $SIGPIPE_R, my $dummy, 4;
1057 for (keys %SIG_EV) {
1058 delete $SIG_EV{$_};
1059 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$_} || {} };
1060 }
1061 }
1062}
348 1063
349sub signal { 1064sub signal {
350 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1065 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
351 1066
1067 unless ($SIGPIPE_R) {
1068 if (AnyEvent::WIN32) {
1069 ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_pipe ();
1070 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_R) if $SIGPIPE_R;
1071 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_W) if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1072 } else {
1073 pipe $SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W;
1074 require Fcntl;
1075 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, &Fcntl::F_SETFL, &Fcntl::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_R;
1076 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, &Fcntl::F_SETFL, &Fcntl::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1077 }
1078
1079 $SIGPIPE_R
1080 or Carp::croak "AnyEvent: unable to create a signal reporting pipe: $!\n";
1081
1082 $SIG_IO = AnyEvent->io (fh => $SIGPIPE_R, poll => "r", cb => \&_signal_exec);
1083 }
1084
352 my $signal = uc $arg{signal} 1085 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
353 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing"; 1086 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
354 1087
355 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1088 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
356 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub { 1089 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
357 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} }; 1090 syswrite $SIGPIPE_W, "\x00", 1 unless %SIG_EV;
1091 undef $SIG_EV{$signal};
358 }; 1092 };
359 1093
360 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal" 1094 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
361} 1095}
362 1096
363sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY { 1097sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
364 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]}; 1098 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
365 1099
366 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb}; 1100 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
367 1101
368 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} }; 1102 delete $SIG{$signal} unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
369} 1103}
370 1104
371# default implementation for ->child 1105# default implementation for ->child
372 1106
373our %PID_CB; 1107our %PID_CB;
374our $CHLD_W; 1108our $CHLD_W;
1109our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
375our $PID_IDLE; 1110our $PID_IDLE;
376our $WNOHANG; 1111our $WNOHANG;
377 1112
378sub _child_wait { 1113sub _child_wait {
379 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) { 1114 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
380 $_->() for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }), 1115 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
381 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} }); 1116 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
382 } 1117 }
383 1118
384 undef $PID_IDLE; 1119 undef $PID_IDLE;
1120}
1121
1122sub _sigchld {
1123 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
1124 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
1125 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1126 &_child_wait;
1127 });
385} 1128}
386 1129
387sub child { 1130sub child {
388 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1131 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
389 1132
391 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing"; 1134 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
392 1135
393 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1136 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
394 1137
395 unless ($WNOHANG) { 1138 unless ($WNOHANG) {
396 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1; 1139 $WNOHANG = eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
397 } 1140 }
398 1141
399 unless ($CHLD_W) { 1142 unless ($CHLD_W) {
400 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_child_wait); 1143 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
401 # child could be a zombie already 1144 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
402 $PID_IDLE ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => \&_child_wait); 1145 &_sigchld;
403 } 1146 }
404 1147
405 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child" 1148 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
406} 1149}
407 1150
412 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} }; 1155 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
413 1156
414 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB; 1157 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
415} 1158}
416 1159
1160package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1161
1162our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1163
1164package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1165
1166use overload
1167 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1168 fallback => 1;
1169
1170sub _send {
1171 # nop
1172}
1173
1174sub send {
1175 my $cv = shift;
1176 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1177 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1178 $cv->_send;
1179}
1180
1181sub croak {
1182 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1183 $_[0]->send;
1184}
1185
1186sub ready {
1187 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1188}
1189
1190sub _wait {
1191 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1192}
1193
1194sub recv {
1195 $_[0]->_wait;
1196
1197 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1198 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1199}
1200
1201sub cb {
1202 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1203 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
1204}
1205
1206sub begin {
1207 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1208 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1209}
1210
1211sub end {
1212 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1213 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1214}
1215
1216# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1217*broadcast = \&send;
1218*wait = \&_wait;
1219
1220=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1221
1222In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1223caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1224the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1225checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1226development.
1227
1228As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1229executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1230also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1231program.
1232
1233The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1234within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1235$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1236so on.
1237
1238=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1239
1240The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1241submodules:
1242
1243=over 4
1244
1245=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1246
1247By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1248conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1249talkative.
1250
1251When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1252conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1253C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1254
1255When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1256model it chooses.
1257
1258=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1259
1260AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1261argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1262will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1263check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems
1264it will croak.
1265
1266In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1267
1268Unlike C<use strict>, it is definitely recommended ot keep it off in
1269production. Keeping C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while
1270developing programs can be very useful, however.
1271
1272=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1273
1274This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1275auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1276entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1277and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1278used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1279auto detection and -probing.
1280
1281This functionality might change in future versions.
1282
1283For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1284could start your program like this:
1285
1286 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1287
1288=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1289
1290Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1291for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1292of auto probing).
1293
1294Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1295current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1296used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1297list.
1298
1299This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1300against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1301small, as the program has to handle conenction and other failures anyways.
1302
1303Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1304but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1305- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1306addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1307IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1308
1309=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1310
1311Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1312for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1313some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1314default.
1315
1316Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1317EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1318
1319=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1320
1321The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1322will create in parallel.
1323
1324=back
1325
417=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE 1326=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1327
1328This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1329a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1330provide AnyEvent compatibility.
418 1331
419If you need to support another event library which isn't directly 1332If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
420supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by 1333supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
421pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of 1334pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
422the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto 1335the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
423C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading 1336C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
424AnyEvent. 1337AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
425 1338
426Example: 1339Example:
427 1340
428 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::]; 1341 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
429 1342
430This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::> 1343This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
431package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is loaded. When 1344package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1345
432AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will 1346When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
433first check for the presence of urxvt. 1347will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1348C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
434 1349
435The class should provide implementations for all watcher types (see 1350The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
436L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> 1351L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
437(Source code) and so on for actual examples, use C<perldoc -m 1352and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
438AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to see the sources). 1353see the sources.
439 1354
1355If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1356provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1357
440The above isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt) 1358The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
441uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent 1359terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
442because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside 1360in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
443I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the 1361inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
444I<rxvt-unicode> distribution. 1362I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
445 1363
446I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to 1364I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
447condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will 1365condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
448C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must 1366C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
449not be in an interactive application, so it makes sense. 1367not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
450 1368
451=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
452
453The following environment variables are used by this module:
454
455C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, reports which event
456model gets used.
457
458=head1 EXAMPLE 1369=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
459 1370
460The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 1371The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
461to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 1372to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
462when the user enters quit: 1373program when the user enters quit:
463 1374
464 use AnyEvent; 1375 use AnyEvent;
465 1376
466 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 1377 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
467 1378
468 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 1379 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1380 fh => \*STDIN,
1381 poll => 'r',
1382 cb => sub {
469 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1383 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
470 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1384 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
471 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1385 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
472 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1386 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1387 },
473 }); 1388 );
474 1389
475 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once 1390 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
476 1391
477 sub new_timer { 1392 sub new_timer {
478 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 1393 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
481 }); 1396 });
482 } 1397 }
483 1398
484 new_timer; # create first timer 1399 new_timer; # create first timer
485 1400
486 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1401 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
487 1402
488=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 1403=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
489 1404
490Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 1405Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
491API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 1406API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
541 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 1456 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
542 or die "connection or write error"; 1457 or die "connection or write error";
543 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 1458 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
544 1459
545Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 1460Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
546result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 1461result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
547 1462
548 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 1463 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
549 1464
550 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 1465 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
551 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 1466 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
552 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 1467 $txn->{finished}->send;
553 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 1468 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
554 } 1469 }
555 1470
556The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 1471The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
557request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 1472request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
558data: 1473data:
559 1474
560 $txn->{finished}->wait; 1475 $txn->{finished}->recv;
561 return $txn->{result}; 1476 return $txn->{result};
562 1477
563The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 1478The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
564that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 1479that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
565wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 1480whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
566and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 1481and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
567problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 1482problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
568random callback. 1483random callback.
569 1484
570All of this enables the following usage styles: 1485All of this enables the following usage styles:
571 1486
5721. Blocking: 14871. Blocking:
573 1488
574 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); 1489 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
575 1490
5762. Blocking, but parallelizing: 14912. Blocking, but running in parallel:
577 1492
578 my @datas = map $_->result, 1493 my @datas = map $_->result,
579 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_), 1494 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
580 @urls; 1495 @urls;
581 1496
582Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know 1497Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
583anything about events. 1498anything about events.
584 1499
5853a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module: 15003a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
586 1501
587 use Event; 1502 use EV;
588 1503
589 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1504 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
590 my $txn = shift; 1505 my $txn = shift;
591 my $data = $txn->result; 1506 my $data = $txn->result;
592 ... 1507 ...
593 }); 1508 });
594 1509
595 Event::loop; 1510 EV::loop;
596 1511
5973b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too: 15123b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
598 1513
599 use AnyEvent; 1514 use AnyEvent;
600 1515
601 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 1516 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
602 1517
603 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1518 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
604 ... 1519 ...
605 $quit->broadcast; 1520 $quit->send;
606 }); 1521 });
607 1522
608 $quit->wait; 1523 $quit->recv;
1524
1525
1526=head1 BENCHMARKS
1527
1528To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1529over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1530of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1531
1532=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1533
1534Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1535through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1536timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1537which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1538
1539Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1540distribution.
1541
1542=head3 Explanation of the columns
1543
1544I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1545different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1546loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1547and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1548would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1549of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1550
1551I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1552RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1553and Perl-based overheads.
1554
1555I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1556takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1557all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1558and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1559
1560I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1561callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1562invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1563signal the end of this phase.
1564
1565I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1566watcher.
1567
1568=head3 Results
1569
1570 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1571 EV/EV 400000 224 0.47 0.35 0.27 EV native interface
1572 EV/Any 100000 224 2.88 0.34 0.27 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1573 CoroEV/Any 100000 224 2.85 0.35 0.28 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1574 Perl/Any 100000 452 4.13 0.73 0.95 pure perl implementation
1575 Event/Event 16000 517 32.20 31.80 0.81 Event native interface
1576 Event/Any 16000 590 35.85 31.55 1.06 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1577 Glib/Any 16000 1357 102.33 12.31 51.00 quadratic behaviour
1578 Tk/Any 2000 1860 27.20 66.31 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1579 POE/Event 2000 6328 109.99 751.67 14.02 via POE::Loop::Event
1580 POE/Select 2000 6027 94.54 809.13 579.80 via POE::Loop::Select
1581
1582=head3 Discussion
1583
1584The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1585well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1586can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1587file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1588the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1589boost.
1590
1591Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1592overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1593the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1594higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1595
1596To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1597benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1598EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1599cycles with POE.
1600
1601C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1602maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1603far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1604natively.
1605
1606The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1607constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1608interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1609adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1610performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1611them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1612
1613The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1614cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1615
1616C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1617faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1618C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1619watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1620making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1621(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1622inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1623
1624The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1625more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1626precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1627file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1628employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1629hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1630above).
1631
1632C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1633select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1634be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1635memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1636as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1637requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1638invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1639implementation.
1640
1641The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1642for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1643small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1644optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1645using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1646memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1647design).
1648
1649=head3 Summary
1650
1651=over 4
1652
1653=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1654(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1655performance with or without AnyEvent.
1656
1657=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1658the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1659adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1660
1661=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1662reasonable memory usage.
1663
1664=back
1665
1666=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1667
1668This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1669creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1670timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1671watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1672watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1673
1674The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1675are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1676fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1677timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1678most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1679
1680In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1681(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1682connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1683
1684Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1685distribution.
1686
1687=head3 Explanation of the columns
1688
1689I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1690each server has a read and write socket end).
1691
1692I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1693nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1694
1695I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1696single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1697it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1698a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1699
1700=head3 Results
1701
1702 name sockets create request
1703 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1704 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1705 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1706 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1707 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1708
1709=head3 Discussion
1710
1711This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1712particular event loop.
1713
1714EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1715is relatively high, though.
1716
1717Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1718loops Event and Glib.
1719
1720Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1721understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1722the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1723uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1724
1725Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1726clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1727
1728POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1729as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1730it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1731
1732=head3 Summary
1733
1734=over 4
1735
1736=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1737
1738=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1739
1740=back
1741
1742=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1743
1744While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1745large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1746I/O watchers.
1747
1748In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1749case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1750one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1751well.
1752
1753The columns are identical to the previous table.
1754
1755=head3 Results
1756
1757 name sockets create request
1758 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1759 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1760 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1761 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1762 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1763
1764=head3 Discussion
1765
1766The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1767server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1768in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1769to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1770speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1771them).
1772
1773EV is again fastest.
1774
1775Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1776loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1777matter.
1778
1779POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1780others.
1781
1782=head3 Summary
1783
1784=over 4
1785
1786=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1787watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1788
1789=back
1790
1791
1792=head1 SIGNALS
1793
1794AnyEvent currently installs handlers for these signals:
1795
1796=over 4
1797
1798=item SIGCHLD
1799
1800A handler for C<SIGCHLD> is installed by AnyEvent's child watcher
1801emulation for event loops that do not support them natively. Also, some
1802event loops install a similar handler.
1803
1804=item SIGPIPE
1805
1806A no-op handler is installed for C<SIGPIPE> when C<$SIG{PIPE}> is C<undef>
1807when AnyEvent gets loaded.
1808
1809The rationale for this is that AnyEvent users usually do not really depend
1810on SIGPIPE delivery (which is purely an optimisation for shell use, or
1811badly-written programs), but C<SIGPIPE> can cause spurious and rare
1812program exits as a lot of people do not expect C<SIGPIPE> when writing to
1813some random socket.
1814
1815The rationale for installing a no-op handler as opposed to ignoring it is
1816that this way, the handler will be restored to defaults on exec.
1817
1818Feel free to install your own handler, or reset it to defaults.
1819
1820=back
1821
1822=cut
1823
1824$SIG{PIPE} = sub { }
1825 unless defined $SIG{PIPE};
1826
1827
1828=head1 FORK
1829
1830Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1831because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1832calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1833
1834If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1835watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1836
1837
1838=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1839
1840AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1841$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1842execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1843make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1844will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1845specified in the variable.
1846
1847You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1848before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1849
1850 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1851
1852 use AnyEvent;
1853
1854Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1855be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1856probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
1857$ENV{PERL_ANYEGENT_STRICT}.
1858
1859
1860=head1 BUGS
1861
1862Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
1863to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
1864and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
1865mamleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
1866pronounced).
1867
609 1868
610=head1 SEE ALSO 1869=head1 SEE ALSO
611 1870
612Event modules: L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>. 1871Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
613 1872
614Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 1873Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1874L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
615 1875
616Nontrivial usage example: L<Net::FCP>. 1876Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1877L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1878L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1879L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
617 1880
618=head1 1881Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1882servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1883
1884Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1885
1886Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1887
1888Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1889
1890
1891=head1 AUTHOR
1892
1893 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1894 http://home.schmorp.de/
619 1895
620=cut 1896=cut
621 1897
6221 18981
623 1899

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