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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> is the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch
174for events (AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file
175handle). Note that only file handles pointing to things for which
176non-blocking operation makes sense are allowed. This includes sockets,
177most character devices, pipes, fifos and so on, but not for example files
178or block devices.
179
74events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, that creates 180C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a
75a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events. C<cb> teh callback 181watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively.
76to invoke everytime the filehandle becomes ready.
77 182
78Only one io watcher per C<fh> and C<poll> combination is allowed (i.e. on 183C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
79a socket you can have one r + one w, not any more (limitation comes from
80Tk - if you are sure you are not using Tk this limitation is gone).
81 184
82Filehandles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the 185Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
83filehandle exists, too. 186presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
187callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
84 188
85Example: 189The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
190You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
191underlying file descriptor.
86 192
193Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
194always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
195handles.
196
87 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher 197Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
198watcher.
199
88 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 200 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
89 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); 201 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
90 warn "read: $input\n"; 202 warn "read: $input\n";
91 undef $w; 203 undef $w;
92 }); 204 });
94=head2 TIME WATCHERS 206=head2 TIME WATCHERS
95 207
96You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >> 208You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
97method with the following mandatory arguments: 209method with the following mandatory arguments:
98 210
99C<after> after how many seconds (fractions are supported) should the timer 211C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
100activate. C<cb> the callback to invoke. 212supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
213in that case.
101 214
102The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating 215Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
103timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk 216presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
104and Glib). 217callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
105 218
106Example: 219The callback will normally be invoked once only. If you specify another
220parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
221callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
222seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
223false value, then it is treated as if it were missing.
107 224
225The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
226attempt is done to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
227only approximate.
228
108 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds 229Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
230
109 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub { 231 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
110 warn "timeout\n"; 232 warn "timeout\n";
111 }); 233 });
112 234
113 # to cancel the timer: 235 # to cancel the timer:
114 undef $w 236 undef $w;
115 237
116=head2 CONDITION WATCHERS 238Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
117 239
118Condition watchers can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >> 240 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
119method without any arguments. 241 warn "timeout\n";
242 };
120 243
121A condition watcher watches for a condition - precisely that the C<< 244=head3 TIMING ISSUES
122->broadcast >> method has been called.
123 245
124The watcher has only two methods: 246There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
247in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
248o'clock").
249
250While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
251use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
252"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
253the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
254fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
255
256AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
257about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
258on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
259timers.
260
261AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
262AnyEvent API.
263
264AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
125 265
126=over 4 266=over 4
127 267
128=item $cv->wait 268=item AnyEvent->time
129 269
130Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been 270This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
131called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally. 271seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
272return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
132 273
133Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case, so 274It 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 275will 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).
139 276
140You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return 277=item AnyEvent->now
141immediately.
142 278
143=item $cv->broadcast 279This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
280this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
281the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
282time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
144 283
145Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->wait >> and all further 284I<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 285function to call when you want to know the current time.>
147is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
148 286
149Example: 287This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
288thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
289L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update it's activity timeouts).
290
291The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
292with your timing, you can skip it without bad conscience.
293
294For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
295and L<EV> and the following set-up:
296
297The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callback at
298time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
299you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
300second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
301after three seconds.
302
303With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
304both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
305be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
306
307With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
308time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
309last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
310to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
311
312In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
313regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
314callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
315higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
316
317In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
318the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
319
320In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
321can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
322difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
323account.
324
325=back
326
327=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
328
329You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
330I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
331callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
332
333Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
334presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
335callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
336
337Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
338invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
339that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
340but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
341
342The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
343between multiple watchers.
344
345This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
346directly will likely not work correctly.
347
348Example: exit on SIGINT
349
350 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
351
352=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
353
354You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
355
356The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
357watches for any child process exit). The watcher will triggered only when
358the child process has finished and an exit status is available, not on
359any trace events (stopped/continued).
360
361The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
362waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
363callback arguments.
364
365This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
366and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
367random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
368C<system>, is just fine).
369
370There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
371I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
372have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
373
374Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
375event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
376loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
377
378This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
379AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
380C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
381
382Example: fork a process and wait for it
383
384 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
385
386 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
387
388 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
389 pid => $pid,
390 cb => sub {
391 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
392 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
393 $done->send;
394 },
395 );
396
397 # do something else, then wait for process exit
398 $done->recv;
399
400=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
401
402If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
403require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
404will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
405
406AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
407will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
408
409The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
410because they represent a condition that must become true.
411
412Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
413>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
414
415C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
416becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
417the results).
418
419After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
420by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
421were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
422->send >> method).
423
424Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
425optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
426in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
427another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
428used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
429a result.
430
431Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
432for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
433then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
434availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
435called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
436
437You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
438you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
439could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
440button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
441
442Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
443two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
444lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
445you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
446as this asks for trouble.
447
448Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
449used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
450easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
451AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
452it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
453
454There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
455eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
456for the send to occur.
457
458Example: wait for a timer.
150 459
151 # wait till the result is ready 460 # wait till the result is ready
152 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar; 461 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
153 462
154 # do something such as adding a timer 463 # do something such as adding a timer
155 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast 464 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
156 # when the "result" is ready. 465 # when the "result" is ready.
466 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
467 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
468 after => 1,
469 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
470 );
157 471
472 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
473 # calls send
158 $result_ready->wait; 474 $result_ready->recv;
475
476Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that
477condition variables are also code references.
478
479 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
480 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
481 $done->recv;
482
483Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
484callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
485the main program:
486
487 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
488
489 ...
490
491 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
492
493And this is how you would just ste a callback to be called whenever the
494results are available:
495
496 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
497 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
498 });
499
500=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
501
502These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
503code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
504the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
505uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
506
507=over 4
508
509=item $cv->send (...)
510
511Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
512calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
513called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
514
515If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
516immediately from within send.
517
518Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
519future C<< ->recv >> calls.
520
521Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly
522(as a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
523C<send>. Note, however, that many C-based event loops do not handle
524overloading, so as tempting as it may be, passing a condition variable
525instead of a callback does not work. Both the pure perl and EV loops
526support overloading, however, as well as all functions that use perl to
527invoke a callback (as in L<AnyEvent::Socket> and L<AnyEvent::DNS> for
528example).
529
530=item $cv->croak ($error)
531
532Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
533C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
534
535This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
536user/consumer.
537
538=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
539
540=item $cv->end
541
542These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
543
544These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
545one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
546to use a condition variable for the whole process.
547
548Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
549C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
550>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
551is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
552callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
553
554Let's clarify this with the ping example:
555
556 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
557
558 my %result;
559 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
560
561 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
562 $cv->begin;
563 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
564 $result{$host} = ...;
565 $cv->end;
566 };
567 }
568
569 $cv->end;
570
571This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
572C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
573order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
574each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
575it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
576results arrive is not relevant.
577
578There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
579loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
580to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
581C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
582doesn't execute once).
583
584This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
585use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
586is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
587C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
159 588
160=back 589=back
161 590
162=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS 591=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
163 592
164You can listen for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal 593These 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 594code awaits the condition.
166together into one callback invocation, and callback invocation might or
167might not be asynchronous.
168 595
169These watchers might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals 596=over 4
170directly will likely not work correctly.
171 597
172Example: exit on SIGINT 598=item $cv->recv
173 599
174 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 }); 600Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
601>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
602normally.
175 603
176=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS 604You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
605will return immediately.
177 606
178You can also listen for the status of a child process specified by the 607If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
179C<pid> argument. The watcher will only trigger once. This works by 608function will call C<croak>.
180installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>.
181 609
182Example: wait for pid 1333 610In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
611in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
183 612
184 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => 1333, cb => sub { warn "exit status $?" }); 613Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
614(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
615using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
616caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
617condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
618callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
619while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
185 620
186=head1 GLOBALS 621Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
622sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
623multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
624can supply.
625
626The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
627fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
628versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
629C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
630coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
631
632You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
633only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
634time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
635waits otherwise.
636
637=item $bool = $cv->ready
638
639Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
640C<croak> have been called.
641
642=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
643
644This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
645replaces it before doing so.
646
647The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
648C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the condition
649variable itself. Calling C<recv> inside the callback or at any later time
650is guaranteed not to block.
651
652=back
653
654=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
187 655
188=over 4 656=over 4
189 657
190=item $AnyEvent::MODEL 658=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
191 659
195C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case 663C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
196AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>). 664AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
197 665
198The known classes so far are: 666The known classes so far are:
199 667
200 AnyEvent::Impl::Coro based on Coro::Event, best choise. 668 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
201 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also best choice :) 669 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
670 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
202 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, second-best choice. 671 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
203 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice. 672 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
204 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient. 673 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
674 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
675 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
676
677There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
678watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
679POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
680second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
681AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
682it's adaptor.
683
684AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
685autodetecting them.
205 686
206=item AnyEvent::detect 687=item AnyEvent::detect
207 688
208Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model if 689Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
209necessary. You should only call this function right before you would have 690if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
210created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, very late at runtime. 691have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
692runtime.
693
694=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
695
696Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
697autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
698
699If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
700that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
701L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
702
703=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
704
705If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
706before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
707the event loop has been chosen.
708
709You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
710if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
711and the array will be ignored.
712
713Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
211 714
212=back 715=back
213 716
214=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE 717=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
215 718
216As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods 719As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
217freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it. 720freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
218 721
219Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will 722Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
220decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so 723decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
221by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module 724by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
222to load the event module first. 725to load the event module first.
223 726
727Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
728the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
729because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
730events is to stay interactive.
731
732It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
733requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
734called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
735freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
736
224=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM 737=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
225 738
226There will always be a single main program - the only place that should 739There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
227dictate which event model to use. 740dictate which event model to use.
228 741
229If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not 742If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
230do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to chose. 743do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
744decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
231 745
232If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in Gtk2 746If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
233programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you should load 747Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
234it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it, generally, as early 748event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
235as possible. The reason is that modules might create watchers when they 749speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
236are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event model to use as soon as 750modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
237it creates watchers, and it might chose the wrong one unless you load the 751decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
238correct one yourself. 752might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
239 753
240You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by 754You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
241loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, but letting AnyEvent chose is 755C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
242generally better. 756everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
757
758=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
759
760Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
761only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
762
763In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
764
765 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
766
767This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
768
769Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
770it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
771variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
772exit cleanly.
773
774
775=head1 OTHER MODULES
776
777The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
778AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
779in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
780available via CPAN.
781
782=over 4
783
784=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
785
786Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
787functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
788
789=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
790
791Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
792addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
793connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
794
795=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
796
797Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
798supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
799non-blocking SSL/TLS.
800
801=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
802
803Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
804
805=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
806
807A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
808HTTP requests.
809
810=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
811
812Provides a simple web application server framework.
813
814=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
815
816The fastest ping in the west.
817
818=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
819
820Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
821
822=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
823
824Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
825programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
826together.
827
828=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
829
830Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
831L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
832
833=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
834
835A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
836
837=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
838
839A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
840L<App::IGS>).
841
842=item L<AnyEvent::IRC>
843
844AnyEvent based IRC client module family (replacing the older Net::IRC3).
845
846=item L<Net::XMPP2>
847
848AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
849
850=item L<Net::FCP>
851
852AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
853of AnyEvent.
854
855=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
856
857High level API for event-based execution flow control.
858
859=item L<Coro>
860
861Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
862
863=item L<IO::Lambda>
864
865The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
866
867=back
243 868
244=cut 869=cut
245 870
246package AnyEvent; 871package AnyEvent;
247 872
248no warnings; 873no warnings;
249use strict; 874use strict qw(vars subs);
875
250use Carp; 876use Carp;
251 877
252our $VERSION = '2.51'; 878our $VERSION = 4.35;
253our $MODEL; 879our $MODEL;
254 880
255our $AUTOLOAD; 881our $AUTOLOAD;
256our @ISA; 882our @ISA;
257 883
884our @REGISTRY;
885
886our $WIN32;
887
888BEGIN {
889 my $win32 = ! ! ($^O =~ /mswin32/i);
890 eval "sub WIN32(){ $win32 }";
891}
892
258our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1; 893our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
259 894
260our @REGISTRY; 895our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
896
897{
898 my $idx;
899 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
900 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
901 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
902}
261 903
262my @models = ( 904my @models = (
263 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Coro::], 905 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
264 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], 906 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
265 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
266 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
267 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::], 907 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
908 # everything below here will not be autoprobed
909 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
910 # and is usually faster
911 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
912 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
913 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
914 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
915 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
916 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
917 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
268); 918);
269 919
270our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait signal one_event DESTROY); 920our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer time now signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
921
922our @post_detect;
923
924sub post_detect(&) {
925 my ($cb) = @_;
926
927 if ($MODEL) {
928 $cb->();
929
930 1
931 } else {
932 push @post_detect, $cb;
933
934 defined wantarray
935 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
936 : ()
937 }
938}
939
940sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
941 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
942}
271 943
272sub detect() { 944sub detect() {
273 unless ($MODEL) { 945 unless ($MODEL) {
274 no strict 'refs'; 946 no strict 'refs';
947 local $SIG{__DIE__};
948
949 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
950 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
951 if (eval "require $model") {
952 $MODEL = $model;
953 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
954 } else {
955 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
956 }
957 }
275 958
276 # check for already loaded models 959 # check for already loaded models
960 unless ($MODEL) {
277 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 961 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
278 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 962 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
279 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 963 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
280 if (eval "require $model") { 964 if (eval "require $model") {
281 $MODEL = $model; 965 $MODEL = $model;
282 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1; 966 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
283 last; 967 last;
968 }
284 } 969 }
285 } 970 }
971
972 unless ($MODEL) {
973 # try to load a model
974
975 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
976 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
977 if (eval "require $package"
978 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
979 and eval "require $model") {
980 $MODEL = $model;
981 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
982 last;
983 }
984 }
985
986 $MODEL
987 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
988 }
286 } 989 }
287 990
288 unless ($MODEL) { 991 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
289 # try to load a model
290
291 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
292 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
293 if (eval "require $package"
294 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
295 and eval "require $model") {
296 $MODEL = $model;
297 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
298 last;
299 }
300 }
301
302 $MODEL
303 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Event (or Coro+Event), Glib or Tk.";
304 }
305 992
306 unshift @ISA, $MODEL; 993 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
307 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base"; 994
995 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
996
997 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
308 } 998 }
309 999
310 $MODEL 1000 $MODEL
311} 1001}
312 1002
320 1010
321 my $class = shift; 1011 my $class = shift;
322 $class->$func (@_); 1012 $class->$func (@_);
323} 1013}
324 1014
1015# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1016# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1017# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1018sub _dupfh($$$$) {
1019 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1020
1021 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1022 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<")
1023 : $poll eq "w" ? ($w, ">")
1024 : Carp::croak "AnyEvent->io requires poll set to either 'r' or 'w'";
1025
1026 open my $fh2, "$mode&" . fileno $fh
1027 or die "cannot dup() filehandle: $!";
1028
1029 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1030
1031 ($fh2, $rw)
1032}
1033
325package AnyEvent::Base; 1034package AnyEvent::Base;
326 1035
1036# default implementation for now and time
1037
1038BEGIN {
1039 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); time (); 1") {
1040 *_time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1041 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1042 } else {
1043 *_time = sub { time }; # epic fail
1044 }
1045}
1046
1047sub time { _time }
1048sub now { _time }
1049
327# default implementation for ->condvar, ->wait, ->broadcast 1050# default implementation for ->condvar
328 1051
329sub condvar { 1052sub condvar {
330 bless \my $flag, "AnyEvent::Base::CondVar" 1053 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
331}
332
333sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::broadcast {
334 ${$_[0]}++;
335}
336
337sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::wait {
338 AnyEvent->one_event while !${$_[0]};
339} 1054}
340 1055
341# default implementation for ->signal 1056# default implementation for ->signal
342 1057
343our %SIG_CB; 1058our ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W, %SIG_CB, %SIG_EV, $SIG_IO);
1059
1060sub _signal_exec {
1061 sysread $SIGPIPE_R, my $dummy, 4;
1062
1063 while (%SIG_EV) {
1064 for (keys %SIG_EV) {
1065 delete $SIG_EV{$_};
1066 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$_} || {} };
1067 }
1068 }
1069}
344 1070
345sub signal { 1071sub signal {
346 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1072 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
347 1073
1074 unless ($SIGPIPE_R) {
1075 require Fcntl;
1076
1077 if (AnyEvent::WIN32) {
1078 require AnyEvent::Util;
1079
1080 ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_pipe ();
1081 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_R) if $SIGPIPE_R;
1082 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_W) if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1083 } else {
1084 pipe $SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W;
1085 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, &Fcntl::F_SETFL, &Fcntl::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_R;
1086 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, &Fcntl::F_SETFL, &Fcntl::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1087 }
1088
1089 $SIGPIPE_R
1090 or Carp::croak "AnyEvent: unable to create a signal reporting pipe: $!\n";
1091
1092 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, &Fcntl::F_SETFD, &Fcntl::FD_CLOEXEC;
1093 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, &Fcntl::F_SETFD, &Fcntl::FD_CLOEXEC;
1094
1095 $SIG_IO = AnyEvent->io (fh => $SIGPIPE_R, poll => "r", cb => \&_signal_exec);
1096 }
1097
348 my $signal = uc $arg{signal} 1098 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
349 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing"; 1099 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
350 1100
351 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1101 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
352 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub { 1102 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
353 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} }; 1103 syswrite $SIGPIPE_W, "\x00", 1 unless %SIG_EV;
1104 undef $SIG_EV{$signal};
354 }; 1105 };
355 1106
356 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal" 1107 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
357} 1108}
358 1109
359sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY { 1110sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
360 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]}; 1111 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
361 1112
362 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb}; 1113 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
363 1114
364 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} }; 1115 delete $SIG{$signal} unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
365} 1116}
366 1117
367# default implementation for ->child 1118# default implementation for ->child
368 1119
369our %PID_CB; 1120our %PID_CB;
370our $CHLD_W; 1121our $CHLD_W;
1122our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
371our $PID_IDLE; 1123our $PID_IDLE;
372our $WNOHANG; 1124our $WNOHANG;
373 1125
374sub _child_wait { 1126sub _child_wait {
375 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) { 1127 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
376 $_->() for values %{ (delete $PID_CB{$pid}) || {} }; 1128 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
1129 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
377 } 1130 }
378 1131
379 undef $PID_IDLE; 1132 undef $PID_IDLE;
1133}
1134
1135sub _sigchld {
1136 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
1137 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
1138 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1139 &_child_wait;
1140 });
380} 1141}
381 1142
382sub child { 1143sub child {
383 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1144 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
384 1145
385 my $pid = uc $arg{pid} 1146 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
386 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing"; 1147 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
387 1148
388 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1149 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
389 1150
390 unless ($WNOHANG) { 1151 unless ($WNOHANG) {
391 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_child_wait);
392 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1; 1152 $WNOHANG = eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
393 } 1153 }
394 1154
395 # child could be a zombie already 1155 unless ($CHLD_W) {
396 $PID_IDLE ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => \&_child_wait); 1156 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
1157 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1158 &_sigchld;
1159 }
397 1160
398 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child" 1161 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
399} 1162}
400 1163
401sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY { 1164sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
405 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} }; 1168 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
406 1169
407 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB; 1170 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
408} 1171}
409 1172
1173package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1174
1175our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1176
1177package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1178
1179use overload
1180 '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1181 fallback => 1;
1182
1183sub _send {
1184 # nop
1185}
1186
1187sub send {
1188 my $cv = shift;
1189 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1190 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1191 $cv->_send;
1192}
1193
1194sub croak {
1195 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1196 $_[0]->send;
1197}
1198
1199sub ready {
1200 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1201}
1202
1203sub _wait {
1204 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1205}
1206
1207sub recv {
1208 $_[0]->_wait;
1209
1210 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1211 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1212}
1213
1214sub cb {
1215 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1216 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
1217}
1218
1219sub begin {
1220 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1221 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1222}
1223
1224sub end {
1225 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1226 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1227}
1228
1229# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1230*broadcast = \&send;
1231*wait = \&_wait;
1232
1233=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1234
1235In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1236caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1237the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1238checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1239development.
1240
1241As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1242executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1243also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1244program.
1245
1246The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1247within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1248$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1249so on.
1250
1251=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1252
1253The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1254submodules:
1255
1256=over 4
1257
1258=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1259
1260By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1261conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1262talkative.
1263
1264When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1265conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1266C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1267
1268When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1269model it chooses.
1270
1271=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1272
1273AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1274argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1275will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1276check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems
1277it will croak.
1278
1279In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1280
1281Unlike C<use strict>, it is definitely recommended ot keep it off in
1282production. Keeping C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while
1283developing programs can be very useful, however.
1284
1285=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1286
1287This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1288auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1289entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1290and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1291used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1292auto detection and -probing.
1293
1294This functionality might change in future versions.
1295
1296For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1297could start your program like this:
1298
1299 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1300
1301=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1302
1303Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1304for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1305of auto probing).
1306
1307Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1308current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1309used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1310list.
1311
1312This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1313against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1314small, as the program has to handle conenction and other failures anyways.
1315
1316Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1317but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1318- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1319addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1320IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1321
1322=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1323
1324Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1325for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1326some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1327default.
1328
1329Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1330EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1331
1332=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1333
1334The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1335will create in parallel.
1336
1337=back
1338
410=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE 1339=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1340
1341This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1342a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1343provide AnyEvent compatibility.
411 1344
412If you need to support another event library which isn't directly 1345If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
413supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by 1346supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
414pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of 1347pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
415the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto 1348the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
416C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading 1349C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
417AnyEvent. 1350AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
418 1351
419Example: 1352Example:
420 1353
421 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::]; 1354 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
422 1355
423This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::> 1356This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
424package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is loaded. When 1357package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
1358
425AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will 1359When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
426first check for the presence of urxvt. 1360will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1361C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
427 1362
428The class should provide implementations for all watcher types (see 1363The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
429L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> 1364L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
430(Source code) and so on for actual examples, use C<perldoc -m 1365and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
431AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to see the sources). 1366see the sources.
432 1367
1368If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1369provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1370
433The above isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt) 1371The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
434uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent 1372terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
435because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside 1373in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
436I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the 1374inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
437I<rxvt-unicode> distribution. 1375I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
438 1376
439I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to 1377I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
440condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will 1378condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
441C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must 1379C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
442not be in an interactive appliation, so it makes sense. 1380not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
443 1381
444=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
445
446The following environment variables are used by this module:
447
448C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, reports which event
449model gets used.
450
451=head1 EXAMPLE 1382=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
452 1383
453The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 1384The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
454to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 1385to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
455when the user enters quit: 1386program when the user enters quit:
456 1387
457 use AnyEvent; 1388 use AnyEvent;
458 1389
459 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 1390 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
460 1391
461 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 1392 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1393 fh => \*STDIN,
1394 poll => 'r',
1395 cb => sub {
462 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1396 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
463 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1397 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
464 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1398 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
465 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1399 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1400 },
466 }); 1401 );
467 1402
468 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once 1403 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
469 1404
470 sub new_timer { 1405 sub new_timer {
471 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 1406 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
474 }); 1409 });
475 } 1410 }
476 1411
477 new_timer; # create first timer 1412 new_timer; # create first timer
478 1413
479 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1414 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
480 1415
481=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 1416=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
482 1417
483Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 1418Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
484API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 1419API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
534 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 1469 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
535 or die "connection or write error"; 1470 or die "connection or write error";
536 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 1471 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
537 1472
538Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 1473Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
539result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 1474result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
540 1475
541 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 1476 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
542 1477
543 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 1478 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
544 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 1479 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
545 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 1480 $txn->{finished}->send;
546 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 1481 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
547 } 1482 }
548 1483
549The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 1484The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
550request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 1485request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
551data: 1486data:
552 1487
553 $txn->{finished}->wait; 1488 $txn->{finished}->recv;
554 return $txn->{result}; 1489 return $txn->{result};
555 1490
556The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 1491The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
557that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 1492that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
558wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 1493whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
559and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 1494and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
560problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 1495problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
561random callback. 1496random callback.
562 1497
563All of this enables the following usage styles: 1498All of this enables the following usage styles:
564 1499
5651. Blocking: 15001. Blocking:
566 1501
567 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); 1502 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
568 1503
5692. Blocking, but parallelizing: 15042. Blocking, but running in parallel:
570 1505
571 my @datas = map $_->result, 1506 my @datas = map $_->result,
572 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_), 1507 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
573 @urls; 1508 @urls;
574 1509
575Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know 1510Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
576anything about events. 1511anything about events.
577 1512
5783a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module: 15133a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
579 1514
580 use Event; 1515 use EV;
581 1516
582 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1517 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
583 my $txn = shift; 1518 my $txn = shift;
584 my $data = $txn->result; 1519 my $data = $txn->result;
585 ... 1520 ...
586 }); 1521 });
587 1522
588 Event::loop; 1523 EV::loop;
589 1524
5903b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too: 15253b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
591 1526
592 use AnyEvent; 1527 use AnyEvent;
593 1528
594 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 1529 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
595 1530
596 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 1531 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
597 ... 1532 ...
598 $quit->broadcast; 1533 $quit->send;
599 }); 1534 });
600 1535
601 $quit->wait; 1536 $quit->recv;
1537
1538
1539=head1 BENCHMARKS
1540
1541To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1542over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1543of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1544
1545=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1546
1547Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1548through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1549timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1550which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1551
1552Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1553distribution.
1554
1555=head3 Explanation of the columns
1556
1557I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1558different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1559loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1560and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1561would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1562of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1563
1564I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1565RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1566and Perl-based overheads.
1567
1568I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1569takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1570all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1571and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1572
1573I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1574callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1575invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1576signal the end of this phase.
1577
1578I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1579watcher.
1580
1581=head3 Results
1582
1583 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1584 EV/EV 400000 224 0.47 0.35 0.27 EV native interface
1585 EV/Any 100000 224 2.88 0.34 0.27 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1586 CoroEV/Any 100000 224 2.85 0.35 0.28 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1587 Perl/Any 100000 452 4.13 0.73 0.95 pure perl implementation
1588 Event/Event 16000 517 32.20 31.80 0.81 Event native interface
1589 Event/Any 16000 590 35.85 31.55 1.06 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1590 Glib/Any 16000 1357 102.33 12.31 51.00 quadratic behaviour
1591 Tk/Any 2000 1860 27.20 66.31 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1592 POE/Event 2000 6328 109.99 751.67 14.02 via POE::Loop::Event
1593 POE/Select 2000 6027 94.54 809.13 579.80 via POE::Loop::Select
1594
1595=head3 Discussion
1596
1597The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1598well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1599can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1600file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1601the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1602boost.
1603
1604Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1605overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1606the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1607higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1608
1609To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1610benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1611EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1612cycles with POE.
1613
1614C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1615maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1616far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1617natively.
1618
1619The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1620constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1621interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1622adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1623performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1624them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1625
1626The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1627cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1628
1629C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1630faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1631C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1632watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1633making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1634(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1635inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1636
1637The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1638more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1639precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1640file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1641employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1642hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1643above).
1644
1645C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1646select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1647be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1648memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1649as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1650requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1651invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1652implementation.
1653
1654The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1655for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1656small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1657optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1658using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1659memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1660design).
1661
1662=head3 Summary
1663
1664=over 4
1665
1666=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1667(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1668performance with or without AnyEvent.
1669
1670=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1671the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1672adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1673
1674=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1675reasonable memory usage.
1676
1677=back
1678
1679=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1680
1681This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1682creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
1683timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1684watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1685watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1686
1687The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1688are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1689fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
1690timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1691most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1692
1693In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1694(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1695connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1696
1697Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1698distribution.
1699
1700=head3 Explanation of the columns
1701
1702I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1703each server has a read and write socket end).
1704
1705I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
1706nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1707
1708I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1709single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1710it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1711a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1712
1713=head3 Results
1714
1715 name sockets create request
1716 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1717 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1718 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1719 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1720 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1721
1722=head3 Discussion
1723
1724This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1725particular event loop.
1726
1727EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1728is relatively high, though.
1729
1730Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1731loops Event and Glib.
1732
1733Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1734understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1735the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1736uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1737
1738Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1739clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1740
1741POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1742as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1743it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1744
1745=head3 Summary
1746
1747=over 4
1748
1749=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1750
1751=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1752
1753=back
1754
1755=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1756
1757While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1758large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1759I/O watchers.
1760
1761In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1762case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1763one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1764well.
1765
1766The columns are identical to the previous table.
1767
1768=head3 Results
1769
1770 name sockets create request
1771 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1772 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1773 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1774 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1775 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1776
1777=head3 Discussion
1778
1779The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1780server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1781in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1782to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1783speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1784them).
1785
1786EV is again fastest.
1787
1788Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
1789loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1790matter.
1791
1792POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1793others.
1794
1795=head3 Summary
1796
1797=over 4
1798
1799=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1800watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1801
1802=back
1803
1804
1805=head1 SIGNALS
1806
1807AnyEvent currently installs handlers for these signals:
1808
1809=over 4
1810
1811=item SIGCHLD
1812
1813A handler for C<SIGCHLD> is installed by AnyEvent's child watcher
1814emulation for event loops that do not support them natively. Also, some
1815event loops install a similar handler.
1816
1817=item SIGPIPE
1818
1819A no-op handler is installed for C<SIGPIPE> when C<$SIG{PIPE}> is C<undef>
1820when AnyEvent gets loaded.
1821
1822The rationale for this is that AnyEvent users usually do not really depend
1823on SIGPIPE delivery (which is purely an optimisation for shell use, or
1824badly-written programs), but C<SIGPIPE> can cause spurious and rare
1825program exits as a lot of people do not expect C<SIGPIPE> when writing to
1826some random socket.
1827
1828The rationale for installing a no-op handler as opposed to ignoring it is
1829that this way, the handler will be restored to defaults on exec.
1830
1831Feel free to install your own handler, or reset it to defaults.
1832
1833=back
1834
1835=cut
1836
1837$SIG{PIPE} = sub { }
1838 unless defined $SIG{PIPE};
1839
1840
1841=head1 FORK
1842
1843Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1844because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1845calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1846
1847If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1848watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1849
1850
1851=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1852
1853AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1854$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1855execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1856make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1857will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1858specified in the variable.
1859
1860You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1861before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1862
1863 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1864
1865 use AnyEvent;
1866
1867Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1868be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1869probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
1870$ENV{PERL_ANYEGENT_STRICT}.
1871
1872
1873=head1 BUGS
1874
1875Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
1876to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
1877and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
1878memleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
1879pronounced).
1880
602 1881
603=head1 SEE ALSO 1882=head1 SEE ALSO
604 1883
605Event modules: L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>. 1884Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
606 1885
607Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 1886Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1887L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
608 1888
609Nontrivial usage example: L<Net::FCP>. 1889Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1890L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1891L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1892L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
610 1893
611=head1 1894Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1895servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1896
1897Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1898
1899Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1900
1901Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1902
1903
1904=head1 AUTHOR
1905
1906 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1907 http://home.schmorp.de/
612 1908
613=cut 1909=cut
614 1910
6151 19111
616 1912

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