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Revision 1.296 by root, Tue Nov 17 01:19:49 2009 UTC

1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops 3AnyEvent - the DBI of event loop programming
4 4
5Event, Coro, Glib, Tk - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Irssi, rxvt-unicode, IO::Async, Qt
6and POE are various supported event loops/environments.
6 7
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 8=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 9
9 use AnyEvent; 10 use AnyEvent;
10 11
12 # file descriptor readable
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => ..., poll => "[rw]+", cb => sub { 13 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r", cb => sub { ... });
12 my ($poll_got) = @_; 14
15 # one-shot or repeating timers
16 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { ... });
17 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, interval => $seconds, cb => ...
18
19 print AnyEvent->now; # prints current event loop time
20 print AnyEvent->time; # think Time::HiRes::time or simply CORE::time.
21
22 # POSIX signal
23 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "TERM", cb => sub { ... });
24
25 # child process exit
26 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
27 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
13 ... 28 ...
14 }); 29 });
15 30
16* only one io watcher per $fh and $poll type is allowed (i.e. on a socket 31 # called when event loop idle (if applicable)
17you can have one r + one w or one rw watcher, not any more (limitation by 32 my $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub { ... });
18Tk).
19 33
20* the C<$poll_got> passed to the handler needs to be checked by looking 34 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
21for single characters (e.g. with a regex), as it can contain more event 35 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
22types than were requested (e.g. a 'w' watcher might generate 'rw' events,
23limitation by Glib).
24
25* AnyEvent will keep filehandles alive, so as long as the watcher exists,
26the filehandle exists.
27
28 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
29 ...
30 });
31
32* io and time watchers get canceled whenever $w is destroyed, so keep a copy
33
34* timers can only be used once and must be recreated for repeated
35operation (limitation by Glib and Tk).
36
37 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # kind of main loop replacement
38 $w->wait; # enters main loop till $condvar gets ->broadcast 36 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
39 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's 37 # use a condvar in callback mode:
38 $w->cb (sub { $_[0]->recv });
40 39
41* condvars are used to give blocking behaviour when neccessary. Create 40=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
42a condvar for any "request" or "event" your module might create, C<< 41
43->broadcast >> it when the event happens and provide a function that calls 42This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
44C<< ->wait >> for it. See the examples below. 43in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
44L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
45
46=head1 SUPPORT
47
48There is a mailinglist for discussing all things AnyEvent, and an IRC
49channel, too.
50
51See the AnyEvent project page at the B<Schmorpforge Ta-Sa Software
52Repository>, at L<http://anyevent.schmorp.de>, for more info.
53
54=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
55
56Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
57nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
58
59Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
60policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
61
62First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
63interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use, in a
64pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
65the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
66only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
67cannot change this, but it can hide the differences between those event
68loops.
69
70The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
71programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
72religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
73module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
74model you use.
75
76For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
77actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
78like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
79cannot use anything else, as they are simply incompatible to everything
80that isn't them. What's worse, all the potential users of your
81module are I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
82
83AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
84fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
85with the rest: POE + IO::Async? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if
86your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
87too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
88event models it supports (including stuff like IO::Async, as long as those
89use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new event loops
90to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
91
92In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
93model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
94modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
95follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
96offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
97technically possible.
98
99Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
100of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
101non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
102such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
103platform bugs and differences.
104
105Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
106useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
107model, you should I<not> use this module.
45 108
46=head1 DESCRIPTION 109=head1 DESCRIPTION
47 110
48L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 111L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
49allows module authors to utilizy an event loop without forcing module 112allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
50users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist 113users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
51peacefully at any one time). 114peacefully at any one time).
52 115
53The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 116The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
54module. 117module.
55 118
56On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 119During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
57loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 120to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
58loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 121following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
59used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 122L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
60order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 123L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
61used. If still none could be found, it will issue an error. 124to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
125adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
126be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
127found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
128very efficient, but should work everywhere.
129
130Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
131an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
132that model the default. For example:
133
134 use Tk;
135 use AnyEvent;
136
137 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
138
139The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
140starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
141use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
142
143The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
144C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
145explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
146
147=head1 WATCHERS
148
149AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
150stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
151the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
152
153These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
154creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
155callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
156is in control).
157
158Note that B<callbacks must not permanently change global variables>
159potentially in use by the event loop (such as C<$_> or C<$[>) and that B<<
160callbacks must not C<die> >>. The former is good programming practise in
161Perl and the latter stems from the fact that exception handling differs
162widely between event loops.
163
164To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
165variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
166to it).
167
168All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
169
170Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
171example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
172
173An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
174
175 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
176 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
177 undef $w;
178 });
179
180Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
181my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
182declared.
183
184=head2 I/O WATCHERS
185
186 $w = AnyEvent->io (
187 fh => <filehandle_or_fileno>,
188 poll => <"r" or "w">,
189 cb => <callback>,
190 );
191
192You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
193with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
194
195C<fh> is the Perl I<file handle> (or a naked file descriptor) to watch
196for events (AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file
197handle). Note that only file handles pointing to things for which
198non-blocking operation makes sense are allowed. This includes sockets,
199most character devices, pipes, fifos and so on, but not for example files
200or block devices.
201
202C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a
203watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively.
204
205C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
206
207Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
208presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
209callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
210
211The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
212You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
213underlying file descriptor.
214
215Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
216always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
217handles.
218
219Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
220watcher.
221
222 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
223 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
224 warn "read: $input\n";
225 undef $w;
226 });
227
228=head2 TIME WATCHERS
229
230 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => <seconds>, cb => <callback>);
231
232 $w = AnyEvent->timer (
233 after => <fractional_seconds>,
234 interval => <fractional_seconds>,
235 cb => <callback>,
236 );
237
238You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
239method with the following mandatory arguments:
240
241C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
242supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
243in that case.
244
245Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
246presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
247callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
248
249The callback will normally be invoked once only. If you specify another
250parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
251callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
252seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
253false value, then it is treated as if it were missing.
254
255The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
256attempt is done to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
257only approximate.
258
259Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
260
261 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
262 warn "timeout\n";
263 });
264
265 # to cancel the timer:
266 undef $w;
267
268Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
269
270 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
271 warn "timeout\n";
272 };
273
274=head3 TIMING ISSUES
275
276There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
277in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
278o'clock").
279
280While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
281use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
282"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
283the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
284fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
285
286AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
287about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
288on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
289timers.
290
291AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
292AnyEvent API.
293
294AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
62 295
63=over 4 296=over 4
64 297
298=item AnyEvent->time
299
300This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
301seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
302return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
303
304It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
305will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
306
307=item AnyEvent->now
308
309This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
310this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
311the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
312time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
313
314I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
315function to call when you want to know the current time.>
316
317This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
318thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
319L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update it's activity timeouts).
320
321The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
322with your timing, you can skip it without bad conscience.
323
324For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
325and L<EV> and the following set-up:
326
327The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callback at
328time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
329you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
330second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
331after three seconds.
332
333With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
334both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
335be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
336
337With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
338time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
339last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
340to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
341
342In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
343regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
344callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
345higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
346
347In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
348the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
349
350In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
351can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
352difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
353account.
354
355=item AnyEvent->now_update
356
357Some event loops (such as L<EV> or L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) cache
358the current time for each loop iteration (see the discussion of L<<
359AnyEvent->now >>, above).
360
361When a callback runs for a long time (or when the process sleeps), then
362this "current" time will differ substantially from the real time, which
363might affect timers and time-outs.
364
365When this is the case, you can call this method, which will update the
366event loop's idea of "current time".
367
368A typical example would be a script in a web server (e.g. C<mod_perl>) -
369when mod_perl executes the script, then the event loop will have the wrong
370idea about the "current time" (being potentially far in the past, when the
371script ran the last time). In that case you should arrange a call to C<<
372AnyEvent->now_update >> each time the web server process wakes up again
373(e.g. at the start of your script, or in a handler).
374
375Note that updating the time I<might> cause some events to be handled.
376
377=back
378
379=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
380
381 $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => <uppercase_signal_name>, cb => <callback>);
382
383You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
384I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
385callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
386
387Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
388presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
389callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
390
391Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
392invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
393that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
394but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
395
396The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
397between multiple watchers, and AnyEvent will ensure that signals will not
398interrupt your program at bad times.
399
400This watcher might use C<%SIG> (depending on the event loop used),
401so programs overwriting those signals directly will likely not work
402correctly.
403
404Example: exit on SIGINT
405
406 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
407
408=head3 Signal Races, Delays and Workarounds
409
410Many event loops (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt, IO::Async) do not support attaching
411callbacks to signals in a generic way, which is a pity, as you cannot
412do race-free signal handling in perl, requiring C libraries for
413this. AnyEvent will try to do it's best, which means in some cases,
414signals will be delayed. The maximum time a signal might be delayed is
415specified in C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY> (default: 10 seconds). This
416variable can be changed only before the first signal watcher is created,
417and should be left alone otherwise. This variable determines how often
418AnyEvent polls for signals (in case a wake-up was missed). Higher values
419will cause fewer spurious wake-ups, which is better for power and CPU
420saving.
421
422All these problems can be avoided by installing the optional
423L<Async::Interrupt> module, which works with most event loops. It will not
424work with inherently broken event loops such as L<Event> or L<Event::Lib>
425(and not with L<POE> currently, as POE does it's own workaround with
426one-second latency). For those, you just have to suffer the delays.
427
428=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
429
430 $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => <process id>, cb => <callback>);
431
432You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
433
434The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (one some backends,
435using C<0> watches for any child process exit, on others this will
436croak). The watcher will be triggered only when the child process has
437finished and an exit status is available, not on any trace events
438(stopped/continued).
439
440The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
441waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
442callback arguments.
443
444This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
445and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
446random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
447C<system>, is just fine).
448
449There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
450I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
451have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
452
453Not all event models handle this correctly (neither POE nor IO::Async do,
454see their AnyEvent::Impl manpages for details), but even for event models
455that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be loaded before
456the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place). AnyEvent's
457pure perl event loop handles all cases correctly regardless of when you
458start the watcher.
459
460This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first
461thing in an AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one
462watcher before you C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call
463C<AnyEvent::detect>).
464
465As most event loops do not support waiting for child events, they will be
466emulated by AnyEvent in most cases, in which the latency and race problems
467mentioned in the description of signal watchers apply.
468
469Example: fork a process and wait for it
470
471 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
472
473 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
474
475 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
476 pid => $pid,
477 cb => sub {
478 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
479 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
480 $done->send;
481 },
482 );
483
484 # do something else, then wait for process exit
485 $done->recv;
486
487=head2 IDLE WATCHERS
488
489 $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => <callback>);
490
491Sometimes there is a need to do something, but it is not so important
492to do it instantly, but only when there is nothing better to do. This
493"nothing better to do" is usually defined to be "no other events need
494attention by the event loop".
495
496Idle watchers ideally get invoked when the event loop has nothing
497better to do, just before it would block the process to wait for new
498events. Instead of blocking, the idle watcher is invoked.
499
500Most event loops unfortunately do not really support idle watchers (only
501EV, Event and Glib do it in a usable fashion) - for the rest, AnyEvent
502will simply call the callback "from time to time".
503
504Example: read lines from STDIN, but only process them when the
505program is otherwise idle:
506
507 my @lines; # read data
508 my $idle_w;
509 my $io_w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
510 push @lines, scalar <STDIN>;
511
512 # start an idle watcher, if not already done
513 $idle_w ||= AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub {
514 # handle only one line, when there are lines left
515 if (my $line = shift @lines) {
516 print "handled when idle: $line";
517 } else {
518 # otherwise disable the idle watcher again
519 undef $idle_w;
520 }
521 });
522 });
523
524=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
525
526 $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
527
528 $cv->send (<list>);
529 my @res = $cv->recv;
530
531If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
532require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
533will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
534
535AnyEvent is slightly different: it expects somebody else to run the event
536loop and will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
537
538The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
539because they represent a condition that must become true.
540
541Now is probably a good time to look at the examples further below.
542
543Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
544>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
545C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
546becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
547the results).
548
549After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
550by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
551were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
552->send >> method).
553
554Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
555optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
556in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
557another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
558used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
559a result. And yet some people know them as "futures" - a promise to
560compute/deliver something that you can wait for.
561
562Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
563for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
564then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
565availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
566called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
567
568You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
569you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
570could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
571button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
572
573Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
574two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
575lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
576you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
577as this asks for trouble.
578
579Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
580used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
581easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
582AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
583it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
584
585There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
586eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
587for the send to occur.
588
589Example: wait for a timer.
590
591 # wait till the result is ready
592 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
593
594 # do something such as adding a timer
595 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
596 # when the "result" is ready.
597 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
598 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
599 after => 1,
600 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
601 );
602
603 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
604 # calls ->send
605 $result_ready->recv;
606
607Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that condition
608variables are also callable directly.
609
610 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
611 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
612 $done->recv;
613
614Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
615callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
616the main program:
617
618 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
619
620 ...
621
622 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
623
624And this is how you would just set a callback to be called whenever the
625results are available:
626
627 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
628 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
629 });
630
631=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
632
633These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
634code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
635the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
636uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
637
638=over 4
639
640=item $cv->send (...)
641
642Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
643calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
644called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
645
646If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
647immediately from within send.
648
649Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
650future C<< ->recv >> calls.
651
652Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly (as if
653they were a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
654C<send>.
655
656=item $cv->croak ($error)
657
658Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
659C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
660
661This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
662user/consumer. Doing it this way instead of calling C<croak> directly
663delays the error detetcion, but has the overwhelmign advantage that it
664diagnoses the error at the place where the result is expected, and not
665deep in some event clalback without connection to the actual code causing
666the problem.
667
668=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
669
670=item $cv->end
671
672These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
673one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
674to use a condition variable for the whole process.
675
676Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
677C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
678>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed, passing the
679condvar as first argument. That callback is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send
680>>, but that is not required. If no group callback was set, C<send> will
681be called without any arguments.
682
683You can think of C<< $cv->send >> giving you an OR condition (one call
684sends), while C<< $cv->begin >> and C<< $cv->end >> giving you an AND
685condition (all C<begin> calls must be C<end>'ed before the condvar sends).
686
687Let's start with a simple example: you have two I/O watchers (for example,
688STDOUT and STDERR for a program), and you want to wait for both streams to
689close before activating a condvar:
690
691 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
692
693 $cv->begin; # first watcher
694 my $w1 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh1, cb => sub {
695 defined sysread $fh1, my $buf, 4096
696 or $cv->end;
697 });
698
699 $cv->begin; # second watcher
700 my $w2 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh2, cb => sub {
701 defined sysread $fh2, my $buf, 4096
702 or $cv->end;
703 });
704
705 $cv->recv;
706
707This works because for every event source (EOF on file handle), there is
708one call to C<begin>, so the condvar waits for all calls to C<end> before
709sending.
710
711The ping example mentioned above is slightly more complicated, as the
712there are results to be passwd back, and the number of tasks that are
713begung can potentially be zero:
714
715 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
716
717 my %result;
718 $cv->begin (sub { shift->send (\%result) });
719
720 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
721 $cv->begin;
722 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
723 $result{$host} = ...;
724 $cv->end;
725 };
726 }
727
728 $cv->end;
729
730This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
731C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
732order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
733each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
734it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
735results arrive is not relevant.
736
737There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
738loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
739to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
740C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
741doesn't execute once).
742
743This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple (but
744potentially none) subrequests: use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set
745the callback and ensure C<end> is called at least once, and then, for each
746subrequest you start, call C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish,
747call C<end>.
748
749=back
750
751=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
752
753These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
754code awaits the condition.
755
756=over 4
757
758=item $cv->recv
759
760Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
761>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
762normally.
763
764You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
765will return immediately.
766
767If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
768function will call C<croak>.
769
770In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
771in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
772
773Note that doing a blocking wait in a callback is not supported by any
774event loop, that is, recursive invocation of a blocking C<< ->recv
775>> is not allowed, and the C<recv> call will C<croak> if such a
776condition is detected. This condition can be slightly loosened by using
777L<Coro::AnyEvent>, which allows you to do a blocking C<< ->recv >> from
778any thread that doesn't run the event loop itself.
779
780Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
781(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
782using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>. Instead, let the
783caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
784condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
785callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
786while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
787
788You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
789only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
790time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
791waits otherwise.
792
793=item $bool = $cv->ready
794
795Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
796C<croak> have been called.
797
798=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
799
800This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
801replaces it before doing so.
802
803The callback will be called when the condition becomes (or already was)
804"true", i.e. when C<send> or C<croak> are called (or were called), with
805the only argument being the condition variable itself. Calling C<recv>
806inside the callback or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
807
808=back
809
810=head1 SUPPORTED EVENT LOOPS/BACKENDS
811
812The available backend classes are (every class has its own manpage):
813
814=over 4
815
816=item Backends that are autoprobed when no other event loop can be found.
817
818EV is the preferred backend when no other event loop seems to be in
819use. If EV is not installed, then AnyEvent will fall back to its own
820pure-perl implementation, which is available everywhere as it comes with
821AnyEvent itself.
822
823 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (interface to libev, best choice).
824 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
825
826=item Backends that are transparently being picked up when they are used.
827
828These will be used when they are currently loaded when the first watcher
829is created, in which case it is assumed that the application is using
830them. This means that AnyEvent will automatically pick the right backend
831when the main program loads an event module before anything starts to
832create watchers. Nothing special needs to be done by the main program.
833
834 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, very stable, few glitches.
835 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, slow but very stable.
836 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very broken.
837 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
838 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, very slow, some limitations.
839 AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi used when running within irssi.
840
841=item Backends with special needs.
842
843Qt requires the Qt::Application to be instantiated first, but will
844otherwise be picked up automatically. As long as the main program
845instantiates the application before any AnyEvent watchers are created,
846everything should just work.
847
848 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt.
849
850Support for IO::Async can only be partial, as it is too broken and
851architecturally limited to even support the AnyEvent API. It also
852is the only event loop that needs the loop to be set explicitly, so
853it can only be used by a main program knowing about AnyEvent. See
854L<AnyEvent::Impl::Async> for the gory details.
855
856 AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync based on IO::Async, cannot be autoprobed.
857
858=item Event loops that are indirectly supported via other backends.
859
860Some event loops can be supported via other modules:
861
862There is no direct support for WxWidgets (L<Wx>) or L<Prima>.
863
864B<WxWidgets> has no support for watching file handles. However, you can
865use WxWidgets through the POE adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply
866polls 20 times per second, which was considered to be too horrible to even
867consider for AnyEvent.
868
869B<Prima> is not supported as nobody seems to be using it, but it has a POE
870backend, so it can be supported through POE.
871
872AnyEvent knows about both L<Prima> and L<Wx>, however, and will try to
873load L<POE> when detecting them, in the hope that POE will pick them up,
874in which case everything will be automatic.
875
876=back
877
878=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
879
880These are not normally required to use AnyEvent, but can be useful to
881write AnyEvent extension modules.
882
883=over 4
884
885=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
886
887Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created, before the
888backend has been autodetected.
889
890Afterwards it contains the event model that is being used, which is the
891name of the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one
892of the C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the
893case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode> it
894will be C<urxvt::anyevent>).
895
896=item AnyEvent::detect
897
898Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
899if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
900have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
901runtime, and not e.g. while initialising of your module.
902
903If you need to do some initialisation before AnyEvent watchers are
904created, use C<post_detect>.
905
906=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
907
908Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
909autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
910
911The block will be executed I<after> the actual backend has been detected
912(C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> is set), but I<before> any watchers have been
913created, so it is possible to e.g. patch C<@AnyEvent::ISA> or do
914other initialisations - see the sources of L<AnyEvent::Strict> or
915L<AnyEvent::AIO> to see how this is used.
916
917The most common usage is to create some global watchers, without forcing
918event module detection too early, for example, L<AnyEvent::AIO> creates
919and installs the global L<IO::AIO> watcher in a C<post_detect> block to
920avoid autodetecting the event module at load time.
921
922If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
923that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed (or
924C<undef> when the hook was immediately executed). See L<AnyEvent::AIO> for
925a case where this is useful.
926
927Example: Create a watcher for the IO::AIO module and store it in
928C<$WATCHER>. Only do so after the event loop is initialised, though.
929
930 our WATCHER;
931
932 my $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect {
933 $WATCHER = AnyEvent->io (fh => IO::AIO::poll_fileno, poll => 'r', cb => \&IO::AIO::poll_cb);
934 };
935
936 # the ||= is important in case post_detect immediately runs the block,
937 # as to not clobber the newly-created watcher. assigning both watcher and
938 # post_detect guard to the same variable has the advantage of users being
939 # able to just C<undef $WATCHER> if the watcher causes them grief.
940
941 $WATCHER ||= $guard;
942
943=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
944
945If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
946before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
947the event loop has been chosen.
948
949You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
950if it is defined then the event loop has already been detected, and the
951array will be ignored.
952
953Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> when your application allows
954it,as it takes care of these details.
955
956This variable is mainly useful for modules that can do something useful
957when AnyEvent is used and thus want to know when it is initialised, but do
958not need to even load it by default. This array provides the means to hook
959into AnyEvent passively, without loading it.
960
961=back
962
963=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
964
965As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
966freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
967
968Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
969decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
970by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
971to load the event module first.
972
973Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
974the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
975because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
976events is to stay interactive.
977
978It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
979requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
980called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
981freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
982
983=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
984
985There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
986dictate which event model to use.
987
988If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
989do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
990decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
991
992If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
993Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
994event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
995speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
996modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
997decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
998might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
999
1000You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
1001C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
1002everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
1003
1004=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
1005
1006Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
1007only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
1008
1009In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
1010
1011 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
1012
1013This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
1014
1015Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
1016it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
1017variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
1018exit cleanly.
1019
1020
1021=head1 OTHER MODULES
1022
1023The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
1024AnyEvent as a client and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent
1025modules and other event loops in the same program. Some of the modules
1026come with AnyEvent, most are available via CPAN.
1027
1028=over 4
1029
1030=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
1031
1032Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
1033functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
1034
1035=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
1036
1037Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
1038addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
1039connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
1040
1041=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
1042
1043Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
1044supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
1045non-blocking SSL/TLS (via L<AnyEvent::TLS>.
1046
1047=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
1048
1049Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
1050
1051=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
1052
1053A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
1054HTTP requests.
1055
1056=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
1057
1058Provides a simple web application server framework.
1059
1060=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
1061
1062The fastest ping in the west.
1063
1064=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
1065
1066Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
1067
1068=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
1069
1070Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
1071programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
1072together.
1073
1074=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
1075
1076Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
1077L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
1078
1079=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
1080
1081A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
1082
1083=item L<AnyEvent::IRC>
1084
1085AnyEvent based IRC client module family (replacing the older Net::IRC3).
1086
1087=item L<AnyEvent::XMPP>
1088
1089AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family (replacing the older
1090Net::XMPP2>.
1091
1092=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
1093
1094A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
1095L<App::IGS>).
1096
1097=item L<Net::FCP>
1098
1099AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
1100of AnyEvent.
1101
1102=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
1103
1104High level API for event-based execution flow control.
1105
1106=item L<Coro>
1107
1108Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
1109
1110=back
1111
65=cut 1112=cut
66 1113
67package AnyEvent; 1114package AnyEvent;
68 1115
69no warnings; 1116# basically a tuned-down version of common::sense
70use strict 'vars'; 1117sub common_sense {
1118 # from common:.sense 1.0
1119 ${^WARNING_BITS} = "\xfc\x3f\xf3\x00\x0f\xf3\xcf\xc0\xf3\xfc\x33\x03";
1120 # use strict vars subs
1121 $^H |= 0x00000600;
1122}
1123
1124BEGIN { AnyEvent::common_sense }
1125
71use Carp; 1126use Carp ();
72 1127
73our $VERSION = '1.02'; 1128our $VERSION = '5.202';
74our $MODEL; 1129our $MODEL;
75 1130
76our $AUTOLOAD; 1131our $AUTOLOAD;
77our @ISA; 1132our @ISA;
78 1133
79our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
80
81our @REGISTRY; 1134our @REGISTRY;
82 1135
1136our $WIN32;
1137
1138our $VERBOSE;
1139
1140BEGIN {
1141 eval "sub WIN32(){ " . (($^O =~ /mswin32/i)*1) ." }";
1142 eval "sub TAINT(){ " . (${^TAINT}*1) . " }";
1143
1144 delete @ENV{grep /^PERL_ANYEVENT_/, keys %ENV}
1145 if ${^TAINT};
1146
1147 $VERBOSE = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
1148
1149}
1150
1151our $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY = 10;
1152
1153our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
1154
1155{
1156 my $idx;
1157 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
1158 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
1159 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
1160}
1161
83my @models = ( 1162my @models = (
84 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Coro::], 1163 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV:: , 1],
1164 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: , 1],
1165 # everything below here will not (normally) be autoprobed
1166 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
1167 # and is usually faster
85 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], 1168 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::, 1],
86 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], 1169 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib:: , 1], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
1170 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
1171 [Irssi:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi::], # Irssi has a bogus "Event" package
1172 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
1173 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
1174 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
87 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], 1175 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
1176 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
1177 # IO::Async is just too broken - we would need workarounds for its
1178 # byzantine signal and broken child handling, among others.
1179 # IO::Async is rather hard to detect, as it doesn't have any
1180 # obvious default class.
1181 [IO::Async:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1182 [IO::Async::Loop:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1183 [IO::Async::Notifier:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1184 [AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
88); 1185);
89 1186
90our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait cancel DESTROY); 1187our %method = map +($_ => 1),
1188 qw(io timer time now now_update signal child idle condvar one_event DESTROY);
91 1189
92sub AUTOLOAD { 1190our @post_detect;
93 $AUTOLOAD =~ s/.*://;
94 1191
95 $method{$AUTOLOAD} 1192sub post_detect(&) {
96 or croak "$AUTOLOAD: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects"; 1193 my ($cb) = @_;
97 1194
1195 if ($MODEL) {
1196 $cb->();
1197
1198 undef
1199 } else {
1200 push @post_detect, $cb;
1201
1202 defined wantarray
1203 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::postdetect"
1204 : ()
1205 }
1206}
1207
1208sub AnyEvent::Util::postdetect::DESTROY {
1209 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
1210}
1211
1212sub detect() {
98 unless ($MODEL) { 1213 unless ($MODEL) {
1214 local $SIG{__DIE__};
1215
1216 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
1217 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
1218 if (eval "require $model") {
1219 $MODEL = $model;
1220 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}), using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
1221 } else {
1222 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}):\n$@" if $VERBOSE;
1223 }
1224 }
1225
99 # check for already loaded models 1226 # check for already loaded models
1227 unless ($MODEL) {
100 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 1228 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
101 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 1229 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
102 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 1230 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
103 if (eval "require $model") { 1231 if (eval "require $model") {
104 $MODEL = $model; 1232 $MODEL = $model;
105 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1; 1233 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
106 last; 1234 last;
1235 }
107 } 1236 }
108 } 1237 }
1238
1239 unless ($MODEL) {
1240 # try to autoload a model
1241 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
1242 my ($package, $model, $autoload) = @$_;
1243 if (
1244 $autoload
1245 and eval "require $package"
1246 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
1247 and eval "require $model"
1248 ) {
1249 $MODEL = $model;
1250 warn "AnyEvent: autoloaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
1251 last;
1252 }
1253 }
1254
1255 $MODEL
1256 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.\n";
1257 }
109 } 1258 }
110 1259
111 unless ($MODEL) { 1260 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
112 # try to load a model
113 1261
114 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 1262 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
115 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
116 if (eval "require $model") {
117 $MODEL = $model;
118 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
119 last;
120 }
121 }
122 1263
1264 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
1265
1266 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
1267 }
1268
123 $MODEL 1269 $MODEL
124 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: Coro, Event, Glib or Tk."; 1270}
1271
1272sub AUTOLOAD {
1273 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
1274
1275 $method{$func}
1276 or Carp::croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
1277
1278 detect unless $MODEL;
1279
1280 my $class = shift;
1281 $class->$func (@_);
1282}
1283
1284# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1285# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1286# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1287sub _dupfh($$;$$) {
1288 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1289
1290 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1291 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<&") : ($w, ">&");
1292
1293 open my $fh2, $mode, $fh
1294 or die "AnyEvent->io: cannot dup() filehandle in mode '$poll': $!,";
1295
1296 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1297
1298 ($fh2, $rw)
1299}
1300
1301=head1 SIMPLIFIED AE API
1302
1303Starting with version 5.0, AnyEvent officially supports a second, much
1304simpler, API that is designed to reduce the calling, typing and memory
1305overhead.
1306
1307See the L<AE> manpage for details.
1308
1309=cut
1310
1311package AE;
1312
1313our $VERSION = $AnyEvent::VERSION;
1314
1315sub io($$$) {
1316 AnyEvent->io (fh => $_[0], poll => $_[1] ? "w" : "r", cb => $_[2])
1317}
1318
1319sub timer($$$) {
1320 AnyEvent->timer (after => $_[0], interval => $_[1], cb => $_[2])
1321}
1322
1323sub signal($$) {
1324 AnyEvent->signal (signal => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1325}
1326
1327sub child($$) {
1328 AnyEvent->child (pid => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1329}
1330
1331sub idle($) {
1332 AnyEvent->idle (cb => $_[0])
1333}
1334
1335sub cv(;&) {
1336 AnyEvent->condvar (@_ ? (cb => $_[0]) : ())
1337}
1338
1339sub now() {
1340 AnyEvent->now
1341}
1342
1343sub now_update() {
1344 AnyEvent->now_update
1345}
1346
1347sub time() {
1348 AnyEvent->time
1349}
1350
1351package AnyEvent::Base;
1352
1353# default implementations for many methods
1354
1355sub _time() {
1356 # probe for availability of Time::HiRes
1357 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); Time::HiRes::time (); 1") {
1358 warn "AnyEvent: using Time::HiRes for sub-second timing accuracy.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1359 *_time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1360 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1361 } else {
1362 warn "AnyEvent: using built-in time(), WARNING, no sub-second resolution!\n" if $VERBOSE;
1363 *_time = sub { time }; # epic fail
1364 }
1365
1366 &_time
1367}
1368
1369sub time { _time }
1370sub now { _time }
1371sub now_update { }
1372
1373# default implementation for ->condvar
1374
1375sub condvar {
1376 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
1377}
1378
1379# default implementation for ->signal
1380
1381our $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1382
1383sub _have_async_interrupt() {
1384 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT = 1*(!$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT}
1385 && eval "use Async::Interrupt 1.02 (); 1")
1386 unless defined $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1387
1388 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1389}
1390
1391our ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W, %SIG_CB, %SIG_EV, $SIG_IO);
1392our (%SIG_ASY, %SIG_ASY_W);
1393our ($SIG_COUNT, $SIG_TW);
1394
1395sub _signal_exec {
1396 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1397 ? $SIGPIPE_R->drain
1398 : sysread $SIGPIPE_R, (my $dummy), 9;
1399
1400 while (%SIG_EV) {
1401 for (keys %SIG_EV) {
1402 delete $SIG_EV{$_};
1403 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$_} || {} };
125 } 1404 }
126 } 1405 }
1406}
127 1407
128 @ISA = $MODEL; 1408# install a dummy wakeup watcher to reduce signal catching latency
1409sub _sig_add() {
1410 unless ($SIG_COUNT++) {
1411 # try to align timer on a full-second boundary, if possible
1412 my $NOW = AE::now;
129 1413
1414 $SIG_TW = AE::timer
1415 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY - ($NOW - int $NOW),
1416 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY,
1417 sub { } # just for the PERL_ASYNC_CHECK
1418 ;
1419 }
1420}
1421
1422sub _sig_del {
1423 undef $SIG_TW
1424 unless --$SIG_COUNT;
1425}
1426
1427our $_sig_name_init; $_sig_name_init = sub {
1428 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading
1429 undef $_sig_name_init;
1430
1431 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1432 *sig2num = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2num;
1433 *sig2name = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2name;
1434 } else {
1435 require Config;
1436
1437 my %signame2num;
1438 @signame2num{ split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_name} }
1439 = split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_num};
1440
1441 my @signum2name;
1442 @signum2name[values %signame2num] = keys %signame2num;
1443
1444 *sig2num = sub($) {
1445 $_[0] > 0 ? shift : $signame2num{+shift}
1446 };
1447 *sig2name = sub ($) {
1448 $_[0] > 0 ? $signum2name[+shift] : shift
1449 };
1450 }
1451 };
1452 die if $@;
1453};
1454
1455sub sig2num ($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2num }
1456sub sig2name($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2name }
1457
1458sub signal {
1459 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1460 # probe for availability of Async::Interrupt
1461 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1462 warn "AnyEvent: using Async::Interrupt for race-free signal handling.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1463
1464 $SIGPIPE_R = new Async::Interrupt::EventPipe;
1465 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R->fileno, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1466
1467 } else {
1468 warn "AnyEvent: using emulated perl signal handling with latency timer.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1469
1470 require Fcntl;
1471
1472 if (AnyEvent::WIN32) {
1473 require AnyEvent::Util;
1474
1475 ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_pipe ();
1476 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_R, 1) if $SIGPIPE_R;
1477 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_W, 1) if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1478 } else {
1479 pipe $SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W;
1480 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, &Fcntl::F_SETFL, &Fcntl::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_R;
1481 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, &Fcntl::F_SETFL, &Fcntl::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1482
1483 # not strictly required, as $^F is normally 2, but let's make sure...
1484 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, &Fcntl::F_SETFD, &Fcntl::FD_CLOEXEC;
1485 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, &Fcntl::F_SETFD, &Fcntl::FD_CLOEXEC;
1486 }
1487
1488 $SIGPIPE_R
1489 or Carp::croak "AnyEvent: unable to create a signal reporting pipe: $!\n";
1490
1491 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1492 }
1493
1494 *signal = sub {
1495 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1496
1497 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
1498 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
1499
1500 if ($HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT) {
1501 # async::interrupt
1502
1503 $signal = sig2num $signal;
1504 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1505
1506 $SIG_ASY{$signal} ||= new Async::Interrupt
1507 cb => sub { undef $SIG_EV{$signal} },
1508 signal => $signal,
1509 pipe => [$SIGPIPE_R->filenos],
1510 pipe_autodrain => 0,
1511 ;
1512
1513 } else {
1514 # pure perl
1515
1516 # AE::Util has been loaded in signal
1517 $signal = sig2name $signal;
1518 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1519
1520 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
1521 local $!;
1522 syswrite $SIGPIPE_W, "\x00", 1 unless %SIG_EV;
1523 undef $SIG_EV{$signal};
1524 };
1525
1526 # can't do signal processing without introducing races in pure perl,
1527 # so limit the signal latency.
1528 _sig_add;
1529 }
1530
1531 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1532 };
1533
1534 *AnyEvent::Base::signal::DESTROY = sub {
1535 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1536
1537 _sig_del;
1538
1539 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1540
1541 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1542 ? delete $SIG_ASY{$signal}
1543 : # delete doesn't work with older perls - they then
1544 # print weird messages, or just unconditionally exit
1545 # instead of getting the default action.
1546 undef $SIG{$signal}
1547 unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1548 };
1549 };
1550 die if $@;
1551 &signal
1552}
1553
1554# default implementation for ->child
1555
1556our %PID_CB;
1557our $CHLD_W;
1558our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
1559our $WNOHANG;
1560
1561sub _emit_childstatus($$) {
1562 my (undef, $rpid, $rstatus) = @_;
1563
1564 $_->($rpid, $rstatus)
1565 for values %{ $PID_CB{$rpid} || {} },
1566 values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} };
1567}
1568
1569sub _sigchld {
1570 my $pid;
1571
1572 AnyEvent->_emit_childstatus ($pid, $?)
1573 while ($pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG) > 0;
1574}
1575
1576sub child {
1577 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1578
1579 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
1580 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
1581
1582 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1583
1584 # WNOHANG is almost cetrainly 1 everywhere
1585 $WNOHANG ||= $^O =~ /^(?:openbsd|netbsd|linux|freebsd|cygwin|MSWin32)$/
1586 ? 1
1587 : eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
1588
1589 unless ($CHLD_W) {
1590 $CHLD_W = AE::signal CHLD => \&_sigchld;
1591 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1592 &_sigchld;
1593 }
1594
1595 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::child"
1596}
1597
1598sub AnyEvent::Base::child::DESTROY {
1599 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1600
1601 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
1602 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
1603
1604 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1605}
1606
1607# idle emulation is done by simply using a timer, regardless
1608# of whether the process is idle or not, and not letting
1609# the callback use more than 50% of the time.
1610sub idle {
1611 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1612
1613 my ($cb, $w, $rcb) = $arg{cb};
1614
1615 $rcb = sub {
1616 if ($cb) {
1617 $w = _time;
1618 &$cb;
1619 $w = _time - $w;
1620
1621 # never use more then 50% of the time for the idle watcher,
1622 # within some limits
1623 $w = 0.0001 if $w < 0.0001;
1624 $w = 5 if $w > 5;
1625
1626 $w = AE::timer $w, 0, $rcb;
1627 } else {
1628 # clean up...
1629 undef $w;
1630 undef $rcb;
1631 }
1632 };
1633
1634 $w = AE::timer 0.05, 0, $rcb;
1635
1636 bless \\$cb, "AnyEvent::Base::idle"
1637}
1638
1639sub AnyEvent::Base::idle::DESTROY {
1640 undef $${$_[0]};
1641}
1642
1643package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1644
1645our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1646
1647package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1648
1649#use overload
1650# '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1651# fallback => 1;
1652
1653# save 300+ kilobytes by dirtily hardcoding overloading
1654${"AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::OVERLOAD"}{dummy}++; # Register with magic by touching.
1655*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = sub { }; # "Make it findable via fetchmethod."
1656*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::(&{}'} = sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } }; # &{}
1657${'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = 1; # fallback
1658
1659our $WAITING;
1660
1661sub _send {
1662 # nop
1663}
1664
1665sub send {
130 my $class = shift; 1666 my $cv = shift;
131 $class->$AUTOLOAD (@_); 1667 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1668 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1669 $cv->_send;
132} 1670}
1671
1672sub croak {
1673 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1674 $_[0]->send;
1675}
1676
1677sub ready {
1678 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1679}
1680
1681sub _wait {
1682 $WAITING
1683 and !$_[0]{_ae_sent}
1684 and Carp::croak "AnyEvent::CondVar: recursive blocking wait detected";
1685
1686 local $WAITING = 1;
1687 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1688}
1689
1690sub recv {
1691 $_[0]->_wait;
1692
1693 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1694 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1695}
1696
1697sub cb {
1698 my $cv = shift;
1699
1700 @_
1701 and $cv->{_ae_cb} = shift
1702 and $cv->{_ae_sent}
1703 and (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv);
1704
1705 $cv->{_ae_cb}
1706}
1707
1708sub begin {
1709 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1710 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1711}
1712
1713sub end {
1714 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1715 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1716}
1717
1718# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1719*broadcast = \&send;
1720*wait = \&_wait;
1721
1722=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1723
1724In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1725caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1726the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1727checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1728development.
1729
1730As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1731executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1732also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1733program.
1734
1735The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1736within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1737$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1738so on.
1739
1740=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1741
1742The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1743submodules.
1744
1745Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
1746C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
1747enabled.
1748
1749=over 4
1750
1751=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1752
1753By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1754conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1755talkative.
1756
1757When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1758conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1759C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1760
1761When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1762model it chooses.
1763
1764When set to C<8> or higher, then AnyEvent will report extra information on
1765which optional modules it loads and how it implements certain features.
1766
1767=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1768
1769AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1770argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1771will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1772check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems,
1773it will croak.
1774
1775In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1776
1777Unlike C<use strict> (or it's modern cousin, C<< use L<common::sense>
1778>>, it is definitely recommended to keep it off in production. Keeping
1779C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while developing programs
1780can be very useful, however.
1781
1782=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1783
1784This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1785auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1786entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1787and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1788used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1789auto detection and -probing.
1790
1791This functionality might change in future versions.
1792
1793For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1794could start your program like this:
1795
1796 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1797
1798=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1799
1800Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1801for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1802of auto probing).
1803
1804Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1805current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1806used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1807list.
1808
1809This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1810against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1811small, as the program has to handle conenction and other failures anyways.
1812
1813Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1814but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1815- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1816addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1817IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1818
1819=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1820
1821Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1822for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1823some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1824default.
1825
1826Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1827EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1828
1829=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1830
1831The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1832will create in parallel.
1833
1834=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_OUTSTANDING_DNS>
1835
1836The default value for the C<max_outstanding> parameter for the default DNS
1837resolver - this is the maximum number of parallel DNS requests that are
1838sent to the DNS server.
1839
1840=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_RESOLV_CONF>
1841
1842The file to use instead of F</etc/resolv.conf> (or OS-specific
1843configuration) in the default resolver. When set to the empty string, no
1844default config will be used.
1845
1846=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_FILE>, C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_PATH>.
1847
1848When neither C<ca_file> nor C<ca_path> was specified during
1849L<AnyEvent::TLS> context creation, and either of these environment
1850variables exist, they will be used to specify CA certificate locations
1851instead of a system-dependent default.
1852
1853=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_GUARD> and C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT>
1854
1855When these are set to C<1>, then the respective modules are not
1856loaded. Mostly good for testing AnyEvent itself.
133 1857
134=back 1858=back
135 1859
136=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE 1860=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
1861
1862This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
1863a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
1864provide AnyEvent compatibility.
137 1865
138If you need to support another event library which isn't directly 1866If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
139supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by 1867supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
140pushing, before the first watch gets created, the package name of 1868pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
141the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto 1869the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
142C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading 1870C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
143AnyEvent. 1871AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
144 1872
145Example: 1873Example:
146 1874
147 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::]; 1875 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
148 1876
149This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::> module 1877This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
150when it finds the C<urxvt> module is loaded. When AnyEvent is loaded and 1878package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
151requested to find a suitable event model, it will first check for the
152urxvt module.
153 1879
1880When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
1881will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
1882C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
1883
1884The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
1885L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
1886and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
1887see the sources.
1888
1889If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
1890provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
1891
154The above isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt) uses 1892The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
155the above line exactly. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent 1893terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
156because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside 1894in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
157I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the 1895inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
158I<rxvt-unicode> distribution. 1896I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
159 1897
160=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 1898I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1899condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1900C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1901not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
161 1902
162The following environment variables are used by this module:
163
164C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, reports which event
165model gets used.
166
167=head1 EXAMPLE 1903=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
168 1904
169The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 1905The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
170to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 1906to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
171when the user enters quit: 1907program when the user enters quit:
172 1908
173 use AnyEvent; 1909 use AnyEvent;
174 1910
175 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 1911 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
176 1912
177 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 1913 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1914 fh => \*STDIN,
1915 poll => 'r',
1916 cb => sub {
178 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1917 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
179 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1918 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
180 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1919 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
181 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1920 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1921 },
1922 );
1923
1924 my $time_watcher = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, interval => 1, cb => sub {
1925 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' at most every second
182 }); 1926 });
183 1927
184 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
185
186 sub new_timer {
187 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
188 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
189 &new_timer; # and restart the time
190 });
191 }
192
193 new_timer; # create first timer
194
195 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1928 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
196 1929
197=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 1930=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
198 1931
199Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 1932Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
200API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 1933API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
250 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 1983 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
251 or die "connection or write error"; 1984 or die "connection or write error";
252 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 1985 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
253 1986
254Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 1987Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
255result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 1988result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
256 1989
257 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 1990 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
258 1991
259 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 1992 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
260 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 1993 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
261 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 1994 $txn->{finished}->send;
262 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 1995 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
263 } 1996 }
264 1997
265The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 1998The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
266request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 1999request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
267data: 2000data:
268 2001
269 $txn->{finished}->wait; 2002 $txn->{finished}->recv;
270 return $txn->{result}; 2003 return $txn->{result};
271 2004
272The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 2005The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
273that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 2006that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
274wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 2007whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
275and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 2008and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
276problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 2009problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
277random callback. 2010random callback.
278 2011
279All of this enables the following usage styles: 2012All of this enables the following usage styles:
280 2013
2811. Blocking: 20141. Blocking:
282 2015
283 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); 2016 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
284 2017
2852. Blocking, but parallelizing: 20182. Blocking, but running in parallel:
286 2019
287 my @datas = map $_->result, 2020 my @datas = map $_->result,
288 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_), 2021 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
289 @urls; 2022 @urls;
290 2023
291Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know 2024Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
292anything about events. 2025anything about events.
293 2026
2943a. Event-based in a main program, using any support Event module: 20273a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
295 2028
296 use Event; 2029 use EV;
297 2030
298 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 2031 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
299 my $txn = shift; 2032 my $txn = shift;
300 my $data = $txn->result; 2033 my $data = $txn->result;
301 ... 2034 ...
302 }); 2035 });
303 2036
304 Event::loop; 2037 EV::loop;
305 2038
3063b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too: 20393b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
307 2040
308 use AnyEvent; 2041 use AnyEvent;
309 2042
310 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 2043 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
311 2044
312 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 2045 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
313 ... 2046 ...
314 $quit->broadcast; 2047 $quit->send;
315 }); 2048 });
316 2049
317 $quit->wait; 2050 $quit->recv;
2051
2052
2053=head1 BENCHMARKS
2054
2055To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
2056over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
2057of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
2058
2059=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
2060
2061Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
2062through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
2063timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
2064which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
2065
2066Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
2067distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2068for the EV and Perl backends only.
2069
2070=head3 Explanation of the columns
2071
2072I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
2073different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
2074loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
2075and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
2076would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
2077of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
2078
2079I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
2080RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
2081and Perl-based overheads.
2082
2083I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
2084takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
2085all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
2086and memory usage is not included in the figures.
2087
2088I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
2089callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
2090invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
2091signal the end of this phase.
2092
2093I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
2094watcher.
2095
2096=head3 Results
2097
2098 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
2099 EV/EV 100000 223 0.47 0.43 0.27 EV native interface
2100 EV/Any 100000 223 0.48 0.42 0.26 EV + AnyEvent watchers
2101 Coro::EV/Any 100000 223 0.47 0.42 0.26 coroutines + Coro::Signal
2102 Perl/Any 100000 431 2.70 0.74 0.92 pure perl implementation
2103 Event/Event 16000 516 31.16 31.84 0.82 Event native interface
2104 Event/Any 16000 1203 42.61 34.79 1.80 Event + AnyEvent watchers
2105 IOAsync/Any 16000 1911 41.92 27.45 16.81 via IO::Async::Loop::IO_Poll
2106 IOAsync/Any 16000 1726 40.69 26.37 15.25 via IO::Async::Loop::Epoll
2107 Glib/Any 16000 1118 89.00 12.57 51.17 quadratic behaviour
2108 Tk/Any 2000 1346 20.96 10.75 8.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
2109 POE/Any 2000 6951 108.97 795.32 14.24 via POE::Loop::Event
2110 POE/Any 2000 6648 94.79 774.40 575.51 via POE::Loop::Select
2111
2112=head3 Discussion
2113
2114The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
2115well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
2116can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
2117file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
2118the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
2119boost.
2120
2121Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
2122overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
2123the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
2124higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
2125
2126To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
2127benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
2128EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
2129cycles with POE.
2130
2131C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
2132maximal/minimal, respectively. When using the L<AE> API there is zero
2133overhead (when going through the AnyEvent API create is about 5-6 times
2134slower, with other times being equal, so still uses far less memory than
2135any other event loop and is still faster than Event natively).
2136
2137The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
2138constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
2139interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
2140adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
2141performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
2142them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
2143
2144The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
2145cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
2146
2147C<IO::Async> performs admirably well, about on par with C<Event>, even
2148when using its pure perl backend.
2149
2150C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
2151faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
2152C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
2153watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
2154making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
2155(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
2156inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
2157
2158The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
2159more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
2160precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
2161file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
2162employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
2163hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
2164above).
2165
2166C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
2167select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
2168be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
2169memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
2170as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
2171requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
2172invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
2173implementation.
2174
2175The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
2176for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
2177small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
2178optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
2179using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
2180memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
2181design).
2182
2183=head3 Summary
2184
2185=over 4
2186
2187=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
2188(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
2189performance with or without AnyEvent.
2190
2191=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
2192the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
2193adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
2194
2195=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
2196reasonable memory usage.
2197
2198=back
2199
2200=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
2201
2202This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
2203creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
2204timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
2205watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
2206watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
2207
2208The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
2209are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
2210fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
2211timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
2212most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
2213
2214In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
2215(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
2216connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
2217
2218Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
2219distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2220for the EV and Perl backends only.
2221
2222=head3 Explanation of the columns
2223
2224I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
2225each server has a read and write socket end).
2226
2227I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
2228nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
2229
2230I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
2231single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
2232it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
2233a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
2234
2235=head3 Results
2236
2237 name sockets create request
2238 EV 20000 62.66 7.99
2239 Perl 20000 68.32 32.64
2240 IOAsync 20000 174.06 101.15 epoll
2241 IOAsync 20000 174.67 610.84 poll
2242 Event 20000 202.69 242.91
2243 Glib 20000 557.01 1689.52
2244 POE 20000 341.54 12086.32 uses POE::Loop::Event
2245
2246=head3 Discussion
2247
2248This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
2249particular event loop.
2250
2251EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
2252is relatively high, though.
2253
2254Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
2255loops Event and Glib.
2256
2257IO::Async performs very well when using its epoll backend, and still quite
2258good compared to Glib when using its pure perl backend.
2259
2260Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
2261understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
2262the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
2263uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
2264
2265Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
2266clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
2267
2268POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
2269as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
2270it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
2271
2272=head3 Summary
2273
2274=over 4
2275
2276=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
2277
2278=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
2279
2280=back
2281
2282=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
2283
2284While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
2285large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
2286I/O watchers.
2287
2288In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
2289case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
2290one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
2291well.
2292
2293The columns are identical to the previous table.
2294
2295=head3 Results
2296
2297 name sockets create request
2298 EV 16 20.00 6.54
2299 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
2300 Event 16 81.27 35.86
2301 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
2302 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
2303
2304=head3 Discussion
2305
2306The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
2307server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
2308in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
2309to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
2310speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
2311them).
2312
2313EV is again fastest.
2314
2315Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
2316loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
2317matter.
2318
2319POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
2320others.
2321
2322=head3 Summary
2323
2324=over 4
2325
2326=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
2327watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
2328
2329=back
2330
2331=head2 THE IO::Lambda BENCHMARK
2332
2333Recently I was told about the benchmark in the IO::Lambda manpage, which
2334could be misinterpreted to make AnyEvent look bad. In fact, the benchmark
2335simply compares IO::Lambda with POE, and IO::Lambda looks better (which
2336shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody). As such, the benchmark is
2337fine, and mostly shows that the AnyEvent backend from IO::Lambda isn't
2338very optimal. But how would AnyEvent compare when used without the extra
2339baggage? To explore this, I wrote the equivalent benchmark for AnyEvent.
2340
2341The benchmark itself creates an echo-server, and then, for 500 times,
2342connects to the echo server, sends a line, waits for the reply, and then
2343creates the next connection. This is a rather bad benchmark, as it doesn't
2344test the efficiency of the framework or much non-blocking I/O, but it is a
2345benchmark nevertheless.
2346
2347 name runtime
2348 Lambda/select 0.330 sec
2349 + optimized 0.122 sec
2350 Lambda/AnyEvent 0.327 sec
2351 + optimized 0.138 sec
2352 Raw sockets/select 0.077 sec
2353 POE/select, components 0.662 sec
2354 POE/select, raw sockets 0.226 sec
2355 POE/select, optimized 0.404 sec
2356
2357 AnyEvent/select/nb 0.085 sec
2358 AnyEvent/EV/nb 0.068 sec
2359 +state machine 0.134 sec
2360
2361The benchmark is also a bit unfair (my fault): the IO::Lambda/POE
2362benchmarks actually make blocking connects and use 100% blocking I/O,
2363defeating the purpose of an event-based solution. All of the newly
2364written AnyEvent benchmarks use 100% non-blocking connects (using
2365AnyEvent::Socket::tcp_connect and the asynchronous pure perl DNS
2366resolver), so AnyEvent is at a disadvantage here, as non-blocking connects
2367generally require a lot more bookkeeping and event handling than blocking
2368connects (which involve a single syscall only).
2369
2370The last AnyEvent benchmark additionally uses L<AnyEvent::Handle>, which
2371offers similar expressive power as POE and IO::Lambda, using conventional
2372Perl syntax. This means that both the echo server and the client are 100%
2373non-blocking, further placing it at a disadvantage.
2374
2375As you can see, the AnyEvent + EV combination even beats the
2376hand-optimised "raw sockets benchmark", while AnyEvent + its pure perl
2377backend easily beats IO::Lambda and POE.
2378
2379And even the 100% non-blocking version written using the high-level (and
2380slow :) L<AnyEvent::Handle> abstraction beats both POE and IO::Lambda
2381higher level ("unoptimised") abstractions by a large margin, even though
2382it does all of DNS, tcp-connect and socket I/O in a non-blocking way.
2383
2384The two AnyEvent benchmarks programs can be found as F<eg/ae0.pl> and
2385F<eg/ae2.pl> in the AnyEvent distribution, the remaining benchmarks are
2386part of the IO::Lambda distribution and were used without any changes.
2387
2388
2389=head1 SIGNALS
2390
2391AnyEvent currently installs handlers for these signals:
2392
2393=over 4
2394
2395=item SIGCHLD
2396
2397A handler for C<SIGCHLD> is installed by AnyEvent's child watcher
2398emulation for event loops that do not support them natively. Also, some
2399event loops install a similar handler.
2400
2401Additionally, when AnyEvent is loaded and SIGCHLD is set to IGNORE, then
2402AnyEvent will reset it to default, to avoid losing child exit statuses.
2403
2404=item SIGPIPE
2405
2406A no-op handler is installed for C<SIGPIPE> when C<$SIG{PIPE}> is C<undef>
2407when AnyEvent gets loaded.
2408
2409The rationale for this is that AnyEvent users usually do not really depend
2410on SIGPIPE delivery (which is purely an optimisation for shell use, or
2411badly-written programs), but C<SIGPIPE> can cause spurious and rare
2412program exits as a lot of people do not expect C<SIGPIPE> when writing to
2413some random socket.
2414
2415The rationale for installing a no-op handler as opposed to ignoring it is
2416that this way, the handler will be restored to defaults on exec.
2417
2418Feel free to install your own handler, or reset it to defaults.
2419
2420=back
2421
2422=cut
2423
2424undef $SIG{CHLD}
2425 if $SIG{CHLD} eq 'IGNORE';
2426
2427$SIG{PIPE} = sub { }
2428 unless defined $SIG{PIPE};
2429
2430=head1 RECOMMENDED/OPTIONAL MODULES
2431
2432One of AnyEvent's main goals is to be 100% Pure-Perl(tm): only perl (and
2433it's built-in modules) are required to use it.
2434
2435That does not mean that AnyEvent won't take advantage of some additional
2436modules if they are installed.
2437
2438This section epxlains which additional modules will be used, and how they
2439affect AnyEvent's operetion.
2440
2441=over 4
2442
2443=item L<Async::Interrupt>
2444
2445This slightly arcane module is used to implement fast signal handling: To
2446my knowledge, there is no way to do completely race-free and quick
2447signal handling in pure perl. To ensure that signals still get
2448delivered, AnyEvent will start an interval timer to wake up perl (and
2449catch the signals) with some delay (default is 10 seconds, look for
2450C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>).
2451
2452If this module is available, then it will be used to implement signal
2453catching, which means that signals will not be delayed, and the event loop
2454will not be interrupted regularly, which is more efficient (And good for
2455battery life on laptops).
2456
2457This affects not just the pure-perl event loop, but also other event loops
2458that have no signal handling on their own (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt).
2459
2460Some event loops (POE, Event, Event::Lib) offer signal watchers natively,
2461and either employ their own workarounds (POE) or use AnyEvent's workaround
2462(using C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>). Installing L<Async::Interrupt>
2463does nothing for those backends.
2464
2465=item L<EV>
2466
2467This module isn't really "optional", as it is simply one of the backend
2468event loops that AnyEvent can use. However, it is simply the best event
2469loop available in terms of features, speed and stability: It supports
2470the AnyEvent API optimally, implements all the watcher types in XS, does
2471automatic timer adjustments even when no monotonic clock is available,
2472can take avdantage of advanced kernel interfaces such as C<epoll> and
2473C<kqueue>, and is the fastest backend I<by far>. You can even embed
2474L<Glib>/L<Gtk2> in it (or vice versa, see L<EV::Glib> and L<Glib::EV>).
2475
2476=item L<Guard>
2477
2478The guard module, when used, will be used to implement
2479C<AnyEvent::Util::guard>. This speeds up guards considerably (and uses a
2480lot less memory), but otherwise doesn't affect guard operation much. It is
2481purely used for performance.
2482
2483=item L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS>
2484
2485One of these modules is required when you want to read or write JSON data
2486via L<AnyEvent::Handle>. It is also written in pure-perl, but can take
2487advantage of the ultra-high-speed L<JSON::XS> module when it is installed.
2488
2489In fact, L<AnyEvent::Handle> will use L<JSON::XS> by default if it is
2490installed.
2491
2492=item L<Net::SSLeay>
2493
2494Implementing TLS/SSL in Perl is certainly interesting, but not very
2495worthwhile: If this module is installed, then L<AnyEvent::Handle> (with
2496the help of L<AnyEvent::TLS>), gains the ability to do TLS/SSL.
2497
2498=item L<Time::HiRes>
2499
2500This module is part of perl since release 5.008. It will be used when the
2501chosen event library does not come with a timing source on it's own. The
2502pure-perl event loop (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) will additionally use it to
2503try to use a monotonic clock for timing stability.
2504
2505=back
2506
2507
2508=head1 FORK
2509
2510Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
2511because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
2512calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
2513
2514If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
2515watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child OR you must do
2516something completely out of the scope of AnyEvent.
2517
2518
2519=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
2520
2521AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
2522$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
2523execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
2524make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
2525will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
2526specified in the variable.
2527
2528You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
2529before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
2530
2531 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
2532
2533 use AnyEvent;
2534
2535Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
2536be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
2537probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
2538$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT}.
2539
2540Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
2541C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
2542enabled.
2543
2544
2545=head1 BUGS
2546
2547Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
2548to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
2549and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
2550memleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
2551pronounced).
2552
318 2553
319=head1 SEE ALSO 2554=head1 SEE ALSO
320 2555
321Event modules: L<Coro::Event>, L<Coro>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>. 2556Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
322 2557
323Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::Coro>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>. 2558Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
2559L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
324 2560
325Nontrivial usage example: L<Net::FCP>. 2561Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
2562L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
2563L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
2564L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync>, L<Anyevent::Impl::Irssi>.
326 2565
327=head1 2566Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
2567servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>, L<AnyEvent::TLS>.
2568
2569Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
2570
2571Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>,
2572L<Coro::Event>,
2573
2574Nontrivial usage examples: L<AnyEvent::GPSD>, L<AnyEvent::XMPP>,
2575L<AnyEvent::HTTP>.
2576
2577
2578=head1 AUTHOR
2579
2580 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
2581 http://home.schmorp.de/
328 2582
329=cut 2583=cut
330 2584
3311 25851
332 2586

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