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1=head1 NAME 1=head1 NAME
2 2
3AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops 3AnyEvent - the DBI of event loop programming
4 4
5Event, Coro, Glib, Tk, Perl - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Irssi, rxvt-unicode, IO::Async, Qt,
6FLTK and 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 # if you prefer function calls, look at the AE manpage for
13 # an alternative API.
14
15 # file handle or descriptor readable
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub { 16 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r", cb => sub { ... });
17
18 # one-shot or repeating timers
19 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { ... });
20 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, interval => $seconds, cb => ...);
21
22 print AnyEvent->now; # prints current event loop time
23 print AnyEvent->time; # think Time::HiRes::time or simply CORE::time.
24
25 # POSIX signal
26 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "TERM", cb => sub { ... });
27
28 # child process exit
29 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
30 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
12 ... 31 ...
13 }); 32 });
14 33
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { 34 # called when event loop idle (if applicable)
16 ... 35 my $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub { ... });
17 });
18 36
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores wether a condition was flagged 37 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
38 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
20 $w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast 39 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
21 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's 40 # use a condvar in callback mode:
41 $w->cb (sub { $_[0]->recv });
42
43=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
44
45This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
46in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
47L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
48
49=head1 SUPPORT
50
51An FAQ document is available as L<AnyEvent::FAQ>.
52
53There also is a mailinglist for discussing all things AnyEvent, and an IRC
54channel, too.
55
56See the AnyEvent project page at the B<Schmorpforge Ta-Sa Software
57Repository>, at L<http://anyevent.schmorp.de>, for more info.
22 58
23=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT) 59=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24 60
25Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen 61Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
26nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent? 62nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
27 63
28Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of 64Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
29policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>. 65policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
30 66
31First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only 67First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
32interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use in a 68interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use, in a
33pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike, 69pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
34the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality, and AnyEvent 70the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
35helps hiding the differences. 71only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
72cannot change this, but it can hide the differences between those event
73loops.
36 74
37The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event 75The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
38programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a 76programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
39religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your 77religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
40module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event 78module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
41model you use. 79model you use.
42 80
43For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is actually doing all I/O 81For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
44I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is like joining a 82actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
45cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you cannot use 83like joining a cult: After you join, you are dependent on them and you
46anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that isn't 84cannot use anything else, as they are simply incompatible to everything
47itself. 85that isn't them. What's worse, all the potential users of your
86module are I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
48 87
49AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works fine. AnyEvent + Tk 88AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
50works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together with the rest: POE 89fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
51+ IO::Async? no go. Tk + Event? no go. If your module uses one of 90with the rest: POE + EV? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if your module
52those, every user of your module has to use it, too. If your module 91uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it, too. But if
53uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all event models it supports 92your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all event models it
54(including stuff like POE and IO::Async). 93supports (including stuff like IO::Async, as long as those use one of the
94supported event loops. It is easy to add new event loops to AnyEvent, too,
95so it is future-proof).
55 96
56In addition of being free of having to use I<the one and only true event 97In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
57model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar 98model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
58modules, you get an enourmous amount of code and strict rules you have 99modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
59to follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and to the point by only 100follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and to the point, by only
60offering the functionality that is useful, in as thin as a wrapper as 101offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
61technically possible. 102technically possible.
62 103
104Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
105of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
106non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
107such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
108platform bugs and differences.
109
63Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat 110Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
64useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event 111useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
65model, you should I<not> use this module. 112model, you should I<not> use this module.
66 113
67
68=head1 DESCRIPTION 114=head1 DESCRIPTION
69 115
70L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 116L<AnyEvent> provides a uniform interface to various event loops. This
71allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module 117allows module authors to use event loop functionality without forcing
72users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist 118module users to use a specific event loop implementation (since more
73peacefully at any one time). 119than one event loop cannot coexist peacefully).
74 120
75The interface itself is vaguely similar but not identical to the Event 121The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
76module. 122module.
77 123
78On the first call of any method, the module tries to detect the currently 124During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
79loaded event loop by probing wether any of the following modules is 125to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
80loaded: L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is 126following modules is already loaded: L<EV>, L<AnyEvent::Loop>,
81used. If none is found, the module tries to load these modules in the 127L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>. The first one
82order given. The first one that could be successfully loaded will be 128found is used. If none are detected, the module tries to load the first
83used. If still none could be found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl 129four modules in the order given; but note that if L<EV> is not
84event loop, which is also not very efficient. 130available, the pure-perl L<AnyEvent::Loop> should always work, so
131the other two are not normally tried.
85 132
86Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading 133Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
87an Event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make 134an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
88that model the default. For example: 135that model the default. For example:
89 136
90 use Tk; 137 use Tk;
91 use AnyEvent; 138 use AnyEvent;
92 139
93 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk 140 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
94 141
142The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
143starts using it, all bets are off - this case should be very rare though,
144as very few modules hardcode event loops without announcing this very
145loudly.
146
95The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called 147The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called C<AnyEvent::Loop>. Like
96C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it 148other event modules you can load it explicitly and enjoy the high
97explicitly. 149availability of that event loop :)
98 150
99=head1 WATCHERS 151=head1 WATCHERS
100 152
101AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that 153AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
102stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as 154stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
103the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc. 155the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
104 156
105These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After 157These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
106creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke 158creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
159callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
160is in control).
161
162Note that B<callbacks must not permanently change global variables>
163potentially in use by the event loop (such as C<$_> or C<$[>) and that B<<
164callbacks must not C<die> >>. The former is good programming practice in
165Perl and the latter stems from the fact that exception handling differs
166widely between event loops.
167
107the callback. To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by 168To disable a watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
108setting the variable that stores it to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all 169variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
109references to it). 170to it).
110 171
111All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class. 172All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
112 173
174Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
175example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
176
177One way to achieve that is this pattern:
178
179 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
180 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
181 undef $w;
182 });
183
184Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
185my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
186declared.
187
113=head2 IO WATCHERS 188=head2 I/O WATCHERS
114 189
190 $w = AnyEvent->io (
191 fh => <filehandle_or_fileno>,
192 poll => <"r" or "w">,
193 cb => <callback>,
194 );
195
115You can create I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method with 196You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
116the following mandatory arguments: 197with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
117 198
118C<fh> the Perl I<filehandle> (not filedescriptor) to watch for 199C<fh> is the Perl I<file handle> (or a naked file descriptor) to watch
200for events (AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file
201handle). Note that only file handles pointing to things for which
202non-blocking operation makes sense are allowed. This includes sockets,
203most character devices, pipes, fifos and so on, but not for example files
204or block devices.
205
119events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, that creates 206C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a
120a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events. C<cb> the callback 207watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively.
121to invoke everytime the filehandle becomes ready.
122 208
123Only one io watcher per C<fh> and C<poll> combination is allowed (i.e. on 209C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
124a socket you can have one r + one w, not any more (limitation comes from
125Tk - if you are sure you are not using Tk this limitation is gone).
126 210
127Filehandles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the 211Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
128filehandle exists, too. 212presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
213callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
129 214
130Example: 215The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
216You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
217underlying file descriptor.
131 218
219Some event loops issue spurious readiness notifications, so you should
220always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
221handles.
222
132 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher 223Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
224watcher.
225
133 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 226 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
134 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); 227 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
135 warn "read: $input\n"; 228 warn "read: $input\n";
136 undef $w; 229 undef $w;
137 }); 230 });
138 231
139=head2 TIME WATCHERS 232=head2 TIME WATCHERS
140 233
234 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => <seconds>, cb => <callback>);
235
236 $w = AnyEvent->timer (
237 after => <fractional_seconds>,
238 interval => <fractional_seconds>,
239 cb => <callback>,
240 );
241
141You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >> 242You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
142method with the following mandatory arguments: 243method with the following mandatory arguments:
143 244
144C<after> after how many seconds (fractions are supported) should the timer 245C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
145activate. C<cb> the callback to invoke. 246supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
247in that case.
146 248
147The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating 249Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
148timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk 250presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
149and Glib). 251callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
150 252
151Example: 253The callback will normally be invoked only once. If you specify another
254parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
255callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
256seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
257false value, then it is treated as if it were not specified at all.
152 258
259The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
260attempt is made to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
261only approximate.
262
153 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds 263Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
264
154 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub { 265 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
155 warn "timeout\n"; 266 warn "timeout\n";
156 }); 267 });
157 268
158 # to cancel the timer: 269 # to cancel the timer:
159 undef $w; 270 undef $w;
160 271
161=head2 CONDITION WATCHERS 272Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
162 273
163Condition watchers can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >> 274 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
164method without any arguments. 275 warn "timeout\n";
276 };
165 277
166A condition watcher watches for a condition - precisely that the C<< 278=head3 TIMING ISSUES
167->broadcast >> method has been called.
168 279
169Note that condition watchers recurse into the event loop - if you have 280There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
170two watchers that call C<< ->wait >> in a round-robbin fashion, you 281in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
171lose. Therefore, condition watchers are good to export to your caller, but 282o'clock").
172you should avoid making a blocking wait, at least in callbacks, as this
173usually asks for trouble.
174 283
175The watcher has only two methods: 284While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
285use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
286"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
287the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
288fire "after a second" might actually take six years to finally fire.
289
290AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
291of these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
292on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
293timers.
294
295AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
296AnyEvent API.
297
298AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
176 299
177=over 4 300=over 4
178 301
302=item AnyEvent->time
303
304This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
305seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
306return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
307
308It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
309will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
310
311=item AnyEvent->now
312
313This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
314this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
315the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
316time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
317
318I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
319function to call when you want to know the current time.>
320
321This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
322thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
323L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update its activity timeouts).
324
325The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
326with your timing; you can skip it without a bad conscience.
327
328For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
329and L<EV> and the following set-up:
330
331The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callbacks at
332time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
333you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
334second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
335after three seconds.
336
337With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
338both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
339be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
340
341With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
342time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
343last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
344to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
345
346In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
347regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
348callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
349higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
350
351In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
352the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
353
354In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
355can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
356difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
357account.
358
359=item AnyEvent->now_update
360
361Some event loops (such as L<EV> or L<AnyEvent::Loop>) cache the current
362time for each loop iteration (see the discussion of L<< AnyEvent->now >>,
363above).
364
365When a callback runs for a long time (or when the process sleeps), then
366this "current" time will differ substantially from the real time, which
367might affect timers and time-outs.
368
369When this is the case, you can call this method, which will update the
370event loop's idea of "current time".
371
372A typical example would be a script in a web server (e.g. C<mod_perl>) -
373when mod_perl executes the script, then the event loop will have the wrong
374idea about the "current time" (being potentially far in the past, when the
375script ran the last time). In that case you should arrange a call to C<<
376AnyEvent->now_update >> each time the web server process wakes up again
377(e.g. at the start of your script, or in a handler).
378
379Note that updating the time I<might> cause some events to be handled.
380
381=back
382
383=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
384
385 $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => <uppercase_signal_name>, cb => <callback>);
386
387You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
388I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
389callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
390
391Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
392presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
393callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
394
395Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
396invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
397that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
398but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
399
400The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
401between multiple watchers, and AnyEvent will ensure that signals will not
402interrupt your program at bad times.
403
404This watcher might use C<%SIG> (depending on the event loop used),
405so programs overwriting those signals directly will likely not work
406correctly.
407
408Example: exit on SIGINT
409
410 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
411
412=head3 Restart Behaviour
413
414While restart behaviour is up to the event loop implementation, most will
415not restart syscalls (that includes L<Async::Interrupt> and AnyEvent's
416pure perl implementation).
417
418=head3 Safe/Unsafe Signals
419
420Perl signals can be either "safe" (synchronous to opcode handling)
421or "unsafe" (asynchronous) - the former might delay signal delivery
422indefinitely, the latter might corrupt your memory.
423
424AnyEvent signal handlers are, in addition, synchronous to the event loop,
425i.e. they will not interrupt your running perl program but will only be
426called as part of the normal event handling (just like timer, I/O etc.
427callbacks, too).
428
429=head3 Signal Races, Delays and Workarounds
430
431Many event loops (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt, IO::Async) do not support
432attaching callbacks to signals in a generic way, which is a pity,
433as you cannot do race-free signal handling in perl, requiring
434C libraries for this. AnyEvent will try to do its best, which
435means in some cases, signals will be delayed. The maximum time
436a signal might be delayed is 10 seconds by default, but can
437be overriden via C<$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY}> or
438C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY> - see the Ö<ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES>
439section for details.
440
441All these problems can be avoided by installing the optional
442L<Async::Interrupt> module, which works with most event loops. It will not
443work with inherently broken event loops such as L<Event> or L<Event::Lib>
444(and not with L<POE> currently). For those, you just have to suffer the
445delays.
446
447=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
448
449 $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => <process id>, cb => <callback>);
450
451You can also watch for a child process exit and catch its exit status.
452
453The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (on some backends,
454using C<0> watches for any child process exit, on others this will
455croak). The watcher will be triggered only when the child process has
456finished and an exit status is available, not on any trace events
457(stopped/continued).
458
459The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
460waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
461callback arguments.
462
463This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
464and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
465random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
466C<system>, is just fine).
467
468There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
469I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
470have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
471
472Not all event models handle this correctly (neither POE nor IO::Async do,
473see their AnyEvent::Impl manpages for details), but even for event models
474that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be loaded before
475the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place). AnyEvent's
476pure perl event loop handles all cases correctly regardless of when you
477start the watcher.
478
479This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first
480thing in an AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one
481watcher before you C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call
482C<AnyEvent::detect>).
483
484As most event loops do not support waiting for child events, they will be
485emulated by AnyEvent in most cases, in which case the latency and race
486problems mentioned in the description of signal watchers apply.
487
488Example: fork a process and wait for it
489
490 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
491
492 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
493
494 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
495 pid => $pid,
496 cb => sub {
497 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
498 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
499 $done->send;
500 },
501 );
502
503 # do something else, then wait for process exit
504 $done->recv;
505
506=head2 IDLE WATCHERS
507
508 $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => <callback>);
509
510This will repeatedly invoke the callback after the process becomes idle,
511until either the watcher is destroyed or new events have been detected.
512
513Idle watchers are useful when there is a need to do something, but it
514is not so important (or wise) to do it instantly. The callback will be
515invoked only when there is "nothing better to do", which is usually
516defined as "all outstanding events have been handled and no new events
517have been detected". That means that idle watchers ideally get invoked
518when the event loop has just polled for new events but none have been
519detected. Instead of blocking to wait for more events, the idle watchers
520will be invoked.
521
522Unfortunately, most event loops do not really support idle watchers (only
523EV, Event and Glib do it in a usable fashion) - for the rest, AnyEvent
524will simply call the callback "from time to time".
525
526Example: read lines from STDIN, but only process them when the
527program is otherwise idle:
528
529 my @lines; # read data
530 my $idle_w;
531 my $io_w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
532 push @lines, scalar <STDIN>;
533
534 # start an idle watcher, if not already done
535 $idle_w ||= AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub {
536 # handle only one line, when there are lines left
537 if (my $line = shift @lines) {
538 print "handled when idle: $line";
539 } else {
540 # otherwise disable the idle watcher again
541 undef $idle_w;
542 }
543 });
544 });
545
546=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
547
548 $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
549
550 $cv->send (<list>);
551 my @res = $cv->recv;
552
553If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
554require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
555will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
556
557AnyEvent is slightly different: it expects somebody else to run the event
558loop and will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
559
560The tool to do that is called a "condition variable", so called because
561they represent a condition that must become true.
562
563Now is probably a good time to look at the examples further below.
564
565Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
566>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
567C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
568becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
569the results).
570
571After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
572by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
573were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
574->send >> method).
575
576Since condition variables are the most complex part of the AnyEvent API, here are
577some different mental models of what they are - pick the ones you can connect to:
578
579=over 4
580
581=item * Condition variables are like callbacks - you can call them (and pass them instead
582of callbacks). Unlike callbacks however, you can also wait for them to be called.
583
584=item * Condition variables are signals - one side can emit or send them,
585the other side can wait for them, or install a handler that is called when
586the signal fires.
587
588=item * Condition variables are like "Merge Points" - points in your program
589where you merge multiple independent results/control flows into one.
590
591=item * Condition variables represent a transaction - functions that start
592some kind of transaction can return them, leaving the caller the choice
593between waiting in a blocking fashion, or setting a callback.
594
595=item * Condition variables represent future values, or promises to deliver
596some result, long before the result is available.
597
598=back
599
600Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
601for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
602then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
603availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
604called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
605
606You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
607you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
608could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
609button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
610
611Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
612two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
613lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
614you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
615as this asks for trouble.
616
617Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
618used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
619easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
620AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
621its C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
622
623There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
624eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
625for the send to occur.
626
627Example: wait for a timer.
628
629 # condition: "wait till the timer is fired"
630 my $timer_fired = AnyEvent->condvar;
631
632 # create the timer - we could wait for, say
633 # a handle becomign ready, or even an
634 # AnyEvent::HTTP request to finish, but
635 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
636 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
637 after => 1,
638 cb => sub { $timer_fired->send },
639 );
640
641 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
642 # calls ->send
643 $timer_fired->recv;
644
645Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that condition
646variables are also callable directly.
647
648 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
649 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
650 $done->recv;
651
652Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
653callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
654the main program:
655
656 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
657
658 ...
659
660 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
661
662And this is how you would just set a callback to be called whenever the
663results are available:
664
665 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
666 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
667 });
668
669=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
670
671These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
672code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
673the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
674uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
675
676=over 4
677
678=item $cv->send (...)
679
680Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
681calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
682called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
683
684If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
685immediately from within send.
686
687Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
688future C<< ->recv >> calls.
689
690Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly (as if
691they were a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
692C<send>.
693
694=item $cv->croak ($error)
695
696Similar to send, but causes all calls to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
697C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
698
699This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
700user/consumer. Doing it this way instead of calling C<croak> directly
701delays the error detection, but has the overwhelming advantage that it
702diagnoses the error at the place where the result is expected, and not
703deep in some event callback with no connection to the actual code causing
704the problem.
705
706=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
707
179=item $cv->wait 708=item $cv->end
180 709
181Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been 710These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
182called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally. 711one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
712to use a condition variable for the whole process.
183 713
714Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
715C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
716>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed, passing the
717condvar as first argument. That callback is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send
718>>, but that is not required. If no group callback was set, C<send> will
719be called without any arguments.
720
721You can think of C<< $cv->send >> giving you an OR condition (one call
722sends), while C<< $cv->begin >> and C<< $cv->end >> giving you an AND
723condition (all C<begin> calls must be C<end>'ed before the condvar sends).
724
725Let's start with a simple example: you have two I/O watchers (for example,
726STDOUT and STDERR for a program), and you want to wait for both streams to
727close before activating a condvar:
728
729 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
730
731 $cv->begin; # first watcher
732 my $w1 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh1, cb => sub {
733 defined sysread $fh1, my $buf, 4096
734 or $cv->end;
735 });
736
737 $cv->begin; # second watcher
738 my $w2 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh2, cb => sub {
739 defined sysread $fh2, my $buf, 4096
740 or $cv->end;
741 });
742
743 $cv->recv;
744
745This works because for every event source (EOF on file handle), there is
746one call to C<begin>, so the condvar waits for all calls to C<end> before
747sending.
748
749The ping example mentioned above is slightly more complicated, as the
750there are results to be passwd back, and the number of tasks that are
751begun can potentially be zero:
752
753 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
754
755 my %result;
756 $cv->begin (sub { shift->send (\%result) });
757
758 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
759 $cv->begin;
760 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
761 $result{$host} = ...;
762 $cv->end;
763 };
764 }
765
766 $cv->end;
767
768This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
769C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
770order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
771each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
772it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
773results arrive is not relevant.
774
775There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
776loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
777to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
778C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
779doesn't execute once).
780
781This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple (but
782potentially zero) subrequests: use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set
783the callback and ensure C<end> is called at least once, and then, for each
784subrequest you start, call C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish,
785call C<end>.
786
787=back
788
789=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
790
791These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
792code awaits the condition.
793
794=over 4
795
796=item $cv->recv
797
798Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
799>> methods have been called on C<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
800normally.
801
184You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return 802You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
185immediately. 803will return immediately.
804
805If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
806function will call C<croak>.
807
808In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
809in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
810
811Note that doing a blocking wait in a callback is not supported by any
812event loop, that is, recursive invocation of a blocking C<< ->recv
813>> is not allowed, and the C<recv> call will C<croak> if such a
814condition is detected. This condition can be slightly loosened by using
815L<Coro::AnyEvent>, which allows you to do a blocking C<< ->recv >> from
816any thread that doesn't run the event loop itself.
186 817
187Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case 818Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
188(programs might want to do that so they stay interactive), so I<if you 819(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
189are using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the 820using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>. Instead, let the
190caller decide wether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling 821caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
191condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting 822condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
192callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block, 823callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
193while still suppporting blocking waits if the caller so desires). 824while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
194 825
195Another reason I<never> to C<< ->wait >> in a module is that you cannot 826You can ensure that C<< ->recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
196sensibly have two C<< ->wait >>'s in parallel, as that would require 827only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
197multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent> 828time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
198can supply (the coroutine-aware backends C<Coro::EV> and C<Coro::Event> 829waits otherwise.
199explicitly support concurrent C<< ->wait >>'s from different coroutines,
200however).
201 830
202=item $cv->broadcast 831=item $bool = $cv->ready
203 832
204Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->wait >> and all further 833Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
205calls to C<wait> will return after this method has been called. If nobody 834C<croak> have been called.
206is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
207 835
208Example: 836=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
209 837
210 # wait till the result is ready 838This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
211 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar; 839replaces it before doing so.
212 840
213 # do something such as adding a timer 841The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
214 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast 842C<send> or C<croak> are called, with the only argument being the
215 # when the "result" is ready. 843condition variable itself. If the condition is already true, the
216 844callback is called immediately when it is set. Calling C<recv> inside
217 $result_ready->wait; 845the callback or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
218 846
219=back 847=back
220 848
221=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS 849=head1 SUPPORTED EVENT LOOPS/BACKENDS
222 850
223You can listen for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal 851The available backend classes are (every class has its own manpage):
224I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix. Multiple signals events can be clumped
225together into one callback invocation, and callback invocation might or
226might not be asynchronous.
227
228These watchers might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
229directly will likely not work correctly.
230
231Example: exit on SIGINT
232
233 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
234
235=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
236
237You can also listen for the status of a child process specified by the
238C<pid> argument (or any child if the pid argument is 0). The watcher will
239trigger as often as status change for the child are received. This works
240by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with
241the pid and exit status (as returned by waitpid).
242
243Example: wait for pid 1333
244
245 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => 1333, cb => sub { warn "exit status $?" });
246
247=head1 GLOBALS
248 852
249=over 4 853=over 4
250 854
855=item Backends that are autoprobed when no other event loop can be found.
856
857EV is the preferred backend when no other event loop seems to be in
858use. If EV is not installed, then AnyEvent will fall back to its own
859pure-perl implementation, which is available everywhere as it comes with
860AnyEvent itself.
861
862 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (interface to libev, best choice).
863 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl AnyEvent::Loop, fast and portable.
864
865=item Backends that are transparently being picked up when they are used.
866
867These will be used if they are already loaded when the first watcher
868is created, in which case it is assumed that the application is using
869them. This means that AnyEvent will automatically pick the right backend
870when the main program loads an event module before anything starts to
871create watchers. Nothing special needs to be done by the main program.
872
873 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, very stable, few glitches.
874 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, slow but very stable.
875 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very broken.
876 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
877 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, very slow, some limitations.
878 AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi used when running within irssi.
879 AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync based on IO::Async.
880 AnyEvent::Impl::Cocoa based on Cocoa::EventLoop.
881 AnyEvent::Impl::FLTK based on FLTK (fltk 2 binding).
882
883=item Backends with special needs.
884
885Qt requires the Qt::Application to be instantiated first, but will
886otherwise be picked up automatically. As long as the main program
887instantiates the application before any AnyEvent watchers are created,
888everything should just work.
889
890 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt.
891
892=item Event loops that are indirectly supported via other backends.
893
894Some event loops can be supported via other modules:
895
896There is no direct support for WxWidgets (L<Wx>) or L<Prima>.
897
898B<WxWidgets> has no support for watching file handles. However, you can
899use WxWidgets through the POE adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply
900polls 20 times per second, which was considered to be too horrible to even
901consider for AnyEvent.
902
903B<Prima> is not supported as nobody seems to be using it, but it has a POE
904backend, so it can be supported through POE.
905
906AnyEvent knows about both L<Prima> and L<Wx>, however, and will try to
907load L<POE> when detecting them, in the hope that POE will pick them up,
908in which case everything will be automatic.
909
910=back
911
912=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
913
914These are not normally required to use AnyEvent, but can be useful to
915write AnyEvent extension modules.
916
917=over 4
918
251=item $AnyEvent::MODEL 919=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
252 920
253Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it 921Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created, before the
922backend has been autodetected.
923
254contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the 924Afterwards it contains the event model that is being used, which is the
255Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the 925name of the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one
256C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case 926of the C<AnyEvent::Impl::xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the
257AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>). 927case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode> it
258 928will be C<urxvt::anyevent>).
259The known classes so far are:
260
261 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.
262 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, also best choice).
263 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
264 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also second best choice :)
265 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
266 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
267 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient but portable.
268 929
269=item AnyEvent::detect 930=item AnyEvent::detect
270 931
271Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model if 932Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
272necessary. You should only call this function right before you would have 933if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
273created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, very late at runtime. 934have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
935runtime, and not e.g. during initialisation of your module.
936
937The effect of calling this function is as if a watcher had been created
938(specifically, actions that happen "when the first watcher is created"
939happen when calling detetc as well).
940
941If you need to do some initialisation before AnyEvent watchers are
942created, use C<post_detect>.
943
944=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
945
946Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
947autodetected (or immediately if that has already happened).
948
949The block will be executed I<after> the actual backend has been detected
950(C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> is set), but I<before> any watchers have been
951created, so it is possible to e.g. patch C<@AnyEvent::ISA> or do
952other initialisations - see the sources of L<AnyEvent::Strict> or
953L<AnyEvent::AIO> to see how this is used.
954
955The most common usage is to create some global watchers, without forcing
956event module detection too early, for example, L<AnyEvent::AIO> creates
957and installs the global L<IO::AIO> watcher in a C<post_detect> block to
958avoid autodetecting the event module at load time.
959
960If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
961that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed (or
962C<undef> when the hook was immediately executed). See L<AnyEvent::AIO> for
963a case where this is useful.
964
965Example: Create a watcher for the IO::AIO module and store it in
966C<$WATCHER>, but do so only do so after the event loop is initialised.
967
968 our WATCHER;
969
970 my $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect {
971 $WATCHER = AnyEvent->io (fh => IO::AIO::poll_fileno, poll => 'r', cb => \&IO::AIO::poll_cb);
972 };
973
974 # the ||= is important in case post_detect immediately runs the block,
975 # as to not clobber the newly-created watcher. assigning both watcher and
976 # post_detect guard to the same variable has the advantage of users being
977 # able to just C<undef $WATCHER> if the watcher causes them grief.
978
979 $WATCHER ||= $guard;
980
981=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
982
983If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
984before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will be called directly
985after the event loop has been chosen.
986
987You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
988if it is defined then the event loop has already been detected, and the
989array will be ignored.
990
991Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> when your application allows
992it, as it takes care of these details.
993
994This variable is mainly useful for modules that can do something useful
995when AnyEvent is used and thus want to know when it is initialised, but do
996not need to even load it by default. This array provides the means to hook
997into AnyEvent passively, without loading it.
998
999Example: To load Coro::AnyEvent whenever Coro and AnyEvent are used
1000together, you could put this into Coro (this is the actual code used by
1001Coro to accomplish this):
1002
1003 if (defined $AnyEvent::MODEL) {
1004 # AnyEvent already initialised, so load Coro::AnyEvent
1005 require Coro::AnyEvent;
1006 } else {
1007 # AnyEvent not yet initialised, so make sure to load Coro::AnyEvent
1008 # as soon as it is
1009 push @AnyEvent::post_detect, sub { require Coro::AnyEvent };
1010 }
1011
1012=item AnyEvent::postpone { BLOCK }
1013
1014Arranges for the block to be executed as soon as possible, but not before
1015the call itself returns. In practise, the block will be executed just
1016before the event loop polls for new events, or shortly afterwards.
1017
1018This function never returns anything (to make the C<return postpone { ...
1019}> idiom more useful.
1020
1021To understand the usefulness of this function, consider a function that
1022asynchronously does something for you and returns some transaction
1023object or guard to let you cancel the operation. For example,
1024C<AnyEvent::Socket::tcp_connect>:
1025
1026 # start a conenction attempt unless one is active
1027 $self->{connect_guard} ||= AnyEvent::Socket::tcp_connect "www.example.net", 80, sub {
1028 delete $self->{connect_guard};
1029 ...
1030 };
1031
1032Imagine that this function could instantly call the callback, for
1033example, because it detects an obvious error such as a negative port
1034number. Invoking the callback before the function returns causes problems
1035however: the callback will be called and will try to delete the guard
1036object. But since the function hasn't returned yet, there is nothing to
1037delete. When the function eventually returns it will assign the guard
1038object to C<< $self->{connect_guard} >>, where it will likely never be
1039deleted, so the program thinks it is still trying to connect.
1040
1041This is where C<AnyEvent::postpone> should be used. Instead of calling the
1042callback directly on error:
1043
1044 $cb->(undef), return # signal error to callback, BAD!
1045 if $some_error_condition;
1046
1047It should use C<postpone>:
1048
1049 AnyEvent::postpone { $cb->(undef) }, return # signal error to callback, later
1050 if $some_error_condition;
1051
1052=item AnyEvent::log $level, $msg[, @args]
1053
1054Log the given C<$msg> at the given C<$level>.
1055
1056If L<AnyEvent::Log> is not loaded then this function makes a simple test
1057to see whether the message will be logged. If the test succeeds it will
1058load AnyEvent::Log and call C<AnyEvent::Log::log> - consequently, look at
1059the L<AnyEvent::Log> documentation for details.
1060
1061If the test fails it will simply return. Right now this happens when a
1062numerical loglevel is used and it is larger than the level specified via
1063C<$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}>.
1064
1065If you want to sprinkle loads of logging calls around your code, consider
1066creating a logger callback with the C<AnyEvent::Log::logger> function,
1067which can reduce typing, codesize and can reduce the logging overhead
1068enourmously.
274 1069
275=back 1070=back
276 1071
277=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE 1072=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
278 1073
279As a module author, you should "use AnyEvent" and call AnyEvent methods 1074As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
280freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it. 1075freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
281 1076
282Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - Anyevent will 1077Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
283decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so 1078decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
284by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module 1079by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
285to load the event module first. 1080to load the event module first.
286 1081
1082Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
1083the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
1084because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
1085events is to stay interactive.
1086
1087It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
1088requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
1089called C<results> that returns the results, it may call C<< ->recv >>
1090freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. Always).
1091
287=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM 1092=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
288 1093
289There will always be a single main program - the only place that should 1094There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
290dictate which event model to use. 1095dictate which event model to use.
291 1096
292If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not 1097If the program is not event-based, it need not do anything special, even
293do anything special and let AnyEvent decide which implementation to chose. 1098when it depends on a module that uses an AnyEvent. If the program itself
1099uses AnyEvent, but does not care which event loop is used, all it needs
1100to do is C<use AnyEvent>. In either case, AnyEvent will choose the best
1101available loop implementation.
294 1102
295If the main program relies on a specific event model (for example, in Gtk2 1103If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
296programs you have to rely on either Glib or Glib::Event), you should load 1104Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
297it before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it, generally, as early 1105event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
298as possible. The reason is that modules might create watchers when they 1106speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
299are loaded, and AnyEvent will decide on the event model to use as soon as 1107modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
300it creates watchers, and it might chose the wrong one unless you load the 1108decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
301correct one yourself. 1109might choose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
302 1110
303You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by 1111You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
304loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, but letting AnyEvent chose is 1112C<AnyEvent::Loop> module, which gives you similar behaviour
305generally better. 1113everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
1114
1115=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
1116
1117Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
1118only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
1119
1120In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
1121
1122 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
1123
1124This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
1125
1126Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
1127it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
1128variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
1129exit cleanly.
1130
1131
1132=head1 OTHER MODULES
1133
1134The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
1135AnyEvent as a client and can therefore be mixed easily with other
1136AnyEvent modules and other event loops in the same program. Some of the
1137modules come as part of AnyEvent, the others are available via CPAN (see
1138L<http://search.cpan.org/search?m=module&q=anyevent%3A%3A*> for
1139a longer non-exhaustive list), and the list is heavily biased towards
1140modules of the AnyEvent author himself :)
1141
1142=over 4
1143
1144=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
1145
1146Contains various utility functions that replace often-used blocking
1147functions such as C<inet_aton> with event/callback-based versions.
1148
1149=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
1150
1151Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
1152addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
1153connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
1154
1155=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
1156
1157Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
1158supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
1159non-blocking SSL/TLS (via L<AnyEvent::TLS>).
1160
1161=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
1162
1163Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
1164
1165=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>, L<AnyEvent::IRC>, L<AnyEvent::XMPP>, L<AnyEvent::GPSD>, L<AnyEvent::IGS>, L<AnyEvent::FCP>
1166
1167Implement event-based interfaces to the protocols of the same name (for
1168the curious, IGS is the International Go Server and FCP is the Freenet
1169Client Protocol).
1170
1171=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
1172
1173Truly asynchronous (as opposed to non-blocking) I/O, should be in the
1174toolbox of every event programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
1175L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent together, giving AnyEvent access to event-based
1176file I/O, and much more.
1177
1178=item L<AnyEvent::Filesys::Notify>
1179
1180AnyEvent is good for non-blocking stuff, but it can't detect file or
1181path changes (e.g. "watch this directory for new files", "watch this
1182file for changes"). The L<AnyEvent::Filesys::Notify> module promises to
1183do just that in a portbale fashion, supporting inotify on GNU/Linux and
1184some weird, without doubt broken, stuff on OS X to monitor files. It can
1185fall back to blocking scans at regular intervals transparently on other
1186platforms, so it's about as portable as it gets.
1187
1188(I haven't used it myself, but I haven't heard anybody complaining about
1189it yet).
1190
1191=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
1192
1193Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process for you,
1194notifying you in an event-based way when the operation is finished.
1195
1196=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
1197
1198A simple embedded webserver.
1199
1200=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
1201
1202The fastest ping in the west.
1203
1204=item L<Coro>
1205
1206Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>, which allows you
1207to simply invert the flow control - don't call us, we will call you:
1208
1209 async {
1210 Coro::AnyEvent::sleep 5; # creates a 5s timer and waits for it
1211 print "5 seconds later!\n";
1212
1213 Coro::AnyEvent::readable *STDIN; # uses an I/O watcher
1214 my $line = <STDIN>; # works for ttys
1215
1216 AnyEvent::HTTP::http_get "url", Coro::rouse_cb;
1217 my ($body, $hdr) = Coro::rouse_wait;
1218 };
1219
1220=back
306 1221
307=cut 1222=cut
308 1223
309package AnyEvent; 1224package AnyEvent;
310 1225
311no warnings; 1226# basically a tuned-down version of common::sense
312use strict; 1227sub common_sense {
1228 # from common:.sense 3.4
1229 ${^WARNING_BITS} ^= ${^WARNING_BITS} ^ "\x3c\x3f\x33\x00\x0f\xf0\x0f\xc0\xf0\xfc\x33\x00";
1230 # use strict vars subs - NO UTF-8, as Util.pm doesn't like this atm. (uts46data.pl)
1231 $^H |= 0x00000600;
1232}
313 1233
1234BEGIN { AnyEvent::common_sense }
1235
314use Carp; 1236use Carp ();
315 1237
316our $VERSION = '3.0'; 1238our $VERSION = '6.02';
317our $MODEL; 1239our $MODEL;
318
319our $AUTOLOAD;
320our @ISA; 1240our @ISA;
321
322our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
323
324our @REGISTRY; 1241our @REGISTRY;
1242our $VERBOSE;
1243our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
1244our $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY} || 10; # executes after the BEGIN block below (tainting!)
325 1245
1246BEGIN {
1247 require "AnyEvent/constants.pl";
1248
1249 eval "sub TAINT (){" . (${^TAINT}*1) . "}";
1250
1251 delete @ENV{grep /^PERL_ANYEVENT_/, keys %ENV}
1252 if ${^TAINT};
1253
1254 $ENV{"PERL_ANYEVENT_$_"} = $ENV{"AE_$_"}
1255 for grep s/^AE_// && !exists $ENV{"PERL_ANYEVENT_$_"}, keys %ENV;
1256
1257 @ENV{grep /^PERL_ANYEVENT_/, keys %ENV} = ()
1258 if ${^TAINT};
1259
1260 # $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_xxx} now valid
1261
1262 $VERBOSE = length $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE} ? $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1 : 4;
1263
1264 my $idx;
1265 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
1266 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
1267 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
1268}
1269
1270our @post_detect;
1271
1272sub post_detect(&) {
1273 my ($cb) = @_;
1274
1275 push @post_detect, $cb;
1276
1277 defined wantarray
1278 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::postdetect"
1279 : ()
1280}
1281
1282sub AnyEvent::Util::postdetect::DESTROY {
1283 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
1284}
1285
1286our $POSTPONE_W;
1287our @POSTPONE;
1288
1289sub _postpone_exec {
1290 undef $POSTPONE_W;
1291
1292 &{ shift @POSTPONE }
1293 while @POSTPONE;
1294}
1295
1296sub postpone(&) {
1297 push @POSTPONE, shift;
1298
1299 $POSTPONE_W ||= AE::timer (0, 0, \&_postpone_exec);
1300
1301 ()
1302}
1303
1304sub log($$;@) {
1305 # only load the big bloated module when we actually are about to log something
1306 if ($_[0] <= ($VERBOSE || 1)) { # also catches non-numeric levels(!) and fatal
1307 require AnyEvent::Log; # among other things, sets $VERBOSE to 9
1308 # AnyEvent::Log overwrites this function
1309 goto &log;
1310 }
1311
1312 0 # not logged
1313}
1314
1315sub logger($;$) {
1316 package AnyEvent::Log;
1317
1318 my ($level, $renabled) = @_;
1319
1320 $$renabled = $level <= $VERBOSE;
1321
1322 my $pkg = (caller)[0];
1323
1324 my $logger = [$pkg, $level, $renabled];
1325
1326 our %LOGGER;
1327 $LOGGER{$logger+0} = $logger;
1328
1329 require AnyEvent::Util;
1330 my $guard = AnyEvent::Util::guard (sub {
1331 # "clean up"
1332 delete $LOGGER{$logger+0};
1333 });
1334
1335 sub {
1336 return 0 unless $$renabled;
1337
1338 $guard if 0; # keep guard alive, but don't cause runtime overhead
1339 require AnyEvent::Log unless $AnyEvent::Log::VERSION;
1340 package AnyEvent::Log;
1341 _log ($logger->[0], $level, @_) # logger->[0] has been converted at load time
1342 }
1343}
1344
1345if (length $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_LOG}) {
1346 require AnyEvent::Log; # AnyEvent::Log does the thing for us
1347}
1348
326my @models = ( 1349our @models = (
327 [Coro::EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV::],
328 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::], 1350 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
329 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent::], 1351 [AnyEvent::Loop:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
1352 # everything below here will not (normally) be autoprobed
1353 # as the pure perl backend should work everywhere
1354 # and is usually faster
1355 [Irssi:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi::], # Irssi has a bogus "Event" package, so msut be near the top
330 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], 1356 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], # slow, stable
331 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], 1357 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
1358 # everything below here should not be autoloaded
1359 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
1360 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
1361 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
1362 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
332 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], 1363 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
333 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::], 1364 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
1365 [IO::Async::Loop:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # a bitch to autodetect
1366 [Cocoa::EventLoop:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Cocoa::],
1367 [FLTK:: => AnyEvent::Impl::FLTK::],
334); 1368);
335 1369
336our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait signal one_event DESTROY); 1370our @isa_hook;
1371
1372sub _isa_set {
1373 my @pkg = ("AnyEvent", (map $_->[0], grep defined, @isa_hook), $MODEL);
1374
1375 @{"$pkg[$_-1]::ISA"} = $pkg[$_]
1376 for 1 .. $#pkg;
1377
1378 grep $_ && $_->[1], @isa_hook
1379 and AE::_reset ();
1380}
1381
1382# used for hooking AnyEvent::Strict and AnyEvent::Debug::Wrap into the class hierarchy
1383sub _isa_hook($$;$) {
1384 my ($i, $pkg, $reset_ae) = @_;
1385
1386 $isa_hook[$i] = $pkg ? [$pkg, $reset_ae] : undef;
1387
1388 _isa_set;
1389}
1390
1391# all autoloaded methods reserve the complete glob, not just the method slot.
1392# due to bugs in perls method cache implementation.
1393our @methods = qw(io timer time now now_update signal child idle condvar);
337 1394
338sub detect() { 1395sub detect() {
1396 return $MODEL if $MODEL; # some programs keep references to detect
1397
1398 # IO::Async::Loop::AnyEvent is extremely evil, refuse to work with it
1399 # the author knows about the problems and what it does to AnyEvent as a whole
1400 # (and the ability of others to use AnyEvent), but simply wants to abuse AnyEvent
1401 # anyway.
1402 AnyEvent::log fatal => "AnyEvent: IO::Async::Loop::AnyEvent detected - this module is broken by design,\n"
1403 . "abuses internals and breaks AnyEvent, will not continue."
1404 if exists $INC{"IO/Async/Loop/AnyEvent.pm"};
1405
1406 local $!; # for good measure
1407 local $SIG{__DIE__}; # we use eval
1408
1409 # free some memory
1410 *detect = sub () { $MODEL };
1411 # undef &func doesn't correctly update the method cache. grmbl.
1412 # so we delete the whole glob. grmbl.
1413 # otoh, perl doesn't let me undef an active usb, but it lets me free
1414 # a glob with an active sub. hrm. i hope it works, but perl is
1415 # usually buggy in this department. sigh.
1416 delete @{"AnyEvent::"}{@methods};
1417 undef @methods;
1418
1419 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z0-9:]+)$/) {
1420 my $model = $1;
1421 $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$model" unless $model =~ s/::$//;
1422 if (eval "require $model") {
1423 AnyEvent::log 7 => "loaded model '$model' (forced by \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}), using it.";
1424 $MODEL = $model;
1425 } else {
1426 AnyEvent::log 4 => "unable to load model '$model' (from \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}):\n$@";
1427 }
1428 }
1429
1430 # check for already loaded models
339 unless ($MODEL) { 1431 unless ($MODEL) {
340 no strict 'refs';
341
342 # check for already loaded models
343 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 1432 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
344 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 1433 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
345 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 1434 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
346 if (eval "require $model") { 1435 if (eval "require $model") {
1436 AnyEvent::log 7 => "autodetected model '$model', using it.";
347 $MODEL = $model; 1437 $MODEL = $model;
348 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
349 last; 1438 last;
350 } 1439 }
351 } 1440 }
352 } 1441 }
353 1442
354 unless ($MODEL) { 1443 unless ($MODEL) {
355 # try to load a model 1444 # try to autoload a model
356
357 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 1445 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
358 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 1446 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
1447 if (
359 if (eval "require $package" 1448 eval "require $package"
360 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0 1449 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
361 and eval "require $model") { 1450 and eval "require $model"
1451 ) {
1452 AnyEvent::log 7 => "autoloaded model '$model', using it.";
362 $MODEL = $model; 1453 $MODEL = $model;
363 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
364 last; 1454 last;
365 } 1455 }
366 } 1456 }
367 1457
368 $MODEL 1458 $MODEL
369 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV (or Coro+EV), Event (or Coro+Event), Glib or Tk."; 1459 or AnyEvent::log fatal => "AnyEvent: backend autodetection failed - did you properly install AnyEvent?";
370 } 1460 }
371
372 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
373 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
374 } 1461 }
375 1462
1463 # free memory only needed for probing
1464 undef @models;
1465 undef @REGISTRY;
1466
1467 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
1468
1469 # now nuke some methods that are overridden by the backend.
1470 # SUPER usage is not allowed in these.
1471 for (qw(time signal child idle)) {
1472 undef &{"AnyEvent::Base::$_"}
1473 if defined &{"$MODEL\::$_"};
1474 }
1475
1476 _isa_set;
1477
1478 # we're officially open!
1479
1480 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT}) {
1481 require AnyEvent::Strict;
1482 }
1483
1484 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_WRAP}) {
1485 require AnyEvent::Debug;
1486 AnyEvent::Debug::wrap ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_WRAP});
1487 }
1488
1489 if (length $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_SHELL}) {
1490 require AnyEvent::Socket;
1491 require AnyEvent::Debug;
1492
1493 my $shell = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_SHELL};
1494 $shell =~ s/\$\$/$$/g;
1495
1496 my ($host, $service) = AnyEvent::Socket::parse_hostport ($shell);
1497 $AnyEvent::Debug::SHELL = AnyEvent::Debug::shell ($host, $service);
1498 }
1499
1500 # now the anyevent environment is set up as the user told us to, so
1501 # call the actual user code - post detects
1502
1503 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
1504 undef @post_detect;
1505
1506 *post_detect = sub(&) {
1507 shift->();
1508
1509 undef
1510 };
1511
376 $MODEL 1512 $MODEL
377} 1513}
378 1514
379sub AUTOLOAD { 1515for my $name (@methods) {
380 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://; 1516 *$name = sub {
381 1517 detect;
382 $method{$func} 1518 # we use goto because
383 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects"; 1519 # a) it makes the thunk more transparent
384 1520 # b) it allows us to delete the thunk later
385 detect unless $MODEL; 1521 goto &{ UNIVERSAL::can AnyEvent => "SUPER::$name" }
386 1522 };
387 my $class = shift;
388 $class->$func (@_);
389} 1523}
1524
1525# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1526# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1527# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1528sub _dupfh($$;$$) {
1529 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1530
1531 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1532 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<&") : ($w, ">&");
1533
1534 open my $fh2, $mode, $fh
1535 or die "AnyEvent->io: cannot dup() filehandle in mode '$poll': $!,";
1536
1537 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1538
1539 ($fh2, $rw)
1540}
1541
1542=head1 SIMPLIFIED AE API
1543
1544Starting with version 5.0, AnyEvent officially supports a second, much
1545simpler, API that is designed to reduce the calling, typing and memory
1546overhead by using function call syntax and a fixed number of parameters.
1547
1548See the L<AE> manpage for details.
1549
1550=cut
1551
1552package AE;
1553
1554our $VERSION = $AnyEvent::VERSION;
1555
1556sub _reset() {
1557 eval q{
1558 # fall back to the main API by default - backends and AnyEvent::Base
1559 # implementations can overwrite these.
1560
1561 sub io($$$) {
1562 AnyEvent->io (fh => $_[0], poll => $_[1] ? "w" : "r", cb => $_[2])
1563 }
1564
1565 sub timer($$$) {
1566 AnyEvent->timer (after => $_[0], interval => $_[1], cb => $_[2])
1567 }
1568
1569 sub signal($$) {
1570 AnyEvent->signal (signal => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1571 }
1572
1573 sub child($$) {
1574 AnyEvent->child (pid => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1575 }
1576
1577 sub idle($) {
1578 AnyEvent->idle (cb => $_[0]);
1579 }
1580
1581 sub cv(;&) {
1582 AnyEvent->condvar (@_ ? (cb => $_[0]) : ())
1583 }
1584
1585 sub now() {
1586 AnyEvent->now
1587 }
1588
1589 sub now_update() {
1590 AnyEvent->now_update
1591 }
1592
1593 sub time() {
1594 AnyEvent->time
1595 }
1596
1597 *postpone = \&AnyEvent::postpone;
1598 *log = \&AnyEvent::log;
1599 };
1600 die if $@;
1601}
1602
1603BEGIN { _reset }
390 1604
391package AnyEvent::Base; 1605package AnyEvent::Base;
392 1606
1607# default implementations for many methods
1608
1609sub time {
1610 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1611 # probe for availability of Time::HiRes
1612 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); Time::HiRes::time (); 1") {
1613 *time = sub { Time::HiRes::time () };
1614 *AE::time = \& Time::HiRes::time ;
1615 *now = \&time;
1616 AnyEvent::log 8 => "AnyEvent: using Time::HiRes for sub-second timing accuracy.";
1617 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1618 } else {
1619 *time = sub { CORE::time };
1620 *AE::time = sub (){ CORE::time };
1621 *now = \&time;
1622 AnyEvent::log 3 => "using built-in time(), WARNING, no sub-second resolution!";
1623 }
1624 };
1625 die if $@;
1626
1627 &time
1628}
1629
1630*now = \&time;
1631sub now_update { }
1632
1633sub _poll {
1634 Carp::croak "$AnyEvent::MODEL does not support blocking waits. Caught";
1635}
1636
393# default implementation for ->condvar, ->wait, ->broadcast 1637# default implementation for ->condvar
1638# in fact, the default should not be overwritten
394 1639
395sub condvar { 1640sub condvar {
396 bless \my $flag, "AnyEvent::Base::CondVar" 1641 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
397} 1642 *condvar = sub {
1643 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
1644 };
398 1645
399sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::broadcast { 1646 *AE::cv = sub (;&) {
400 ${$_[0]}++; 1647 bless { @_ ? (_ae_cb => shift) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
401} 1648 };
1649 };
1650 die if $@;
402 1651
403sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::wait { 1652 &condvar
404 AnyEvent->one_event while !${$_[0]};
405} 1653}
406 1654
407# default implementation for ->signal 1655# default implementation for ->signal
408 1656
409our %SIG_CB; 1657our $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1658
1659sub _have_async_interrupt() {
1660 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT = 1*(!$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT}
1661 && eval "use Async::Interrupt 1.02 (); 1")
1662 unless defined $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1663
1664 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1665}
1666
1667our ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W, %SIG_CB, %SIG_EV, $SIG_IO);
1668our (%SIG_ASY, %SIG_ASY_W);
1669our ($SIG_COUNT, $SIG_TW);
1670
1671# install a dummy wakeup watcher to reduce signal catching latency
1672# used by Impls
1673sub _sig_add() {
1674 unless ($SIG_COUNT++) {
1675 # try to align timer on a full-second boundary, if possible
1676 my $NOW = AE::now;
1677
1678 $SIG_TW = AE::timer
1679 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY - ($NOW - int $NOW),
1680 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY,
1681 sub { } # just for the PERL_ASYNC_CHECK
1682 ;
1683 }
1684}
1685
1686sub _sig_del {
1687 undef $SIG_TW
1688 unless --$SIG_COUNT;
1689}
1690
1691our $_sig_name_init; $_sig_name_init = sub {
1692 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1693 undef $_sig_name_init;
1694
1695 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1696 *sig2num = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2num;
1697 *sig2name = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2name;
1698 } else {
1699 require Config;
1700
1701 my %signame2num;
1702 @signame2num{ split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_name} }
1703 = split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_num};
1704
1705 my @signum2name;
1706 @signum2name[values %signame2num] = keys %signame2num;
1707
1708 *sig2num = sub($) {
1709 $_[0] > 0 ? shift : $signame2num{+shift}
1710 };
1711 *sig2name = sub ($) {
1712 $_[0] > 0 ? $signum2name[+shift] : shift
1713 };
1714 }
1715 };
1716 die if $@;
1717};
1718
1719sub sig2num ($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2num }
1720sub sig2name($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2name }
410 1721
411sub signal { 1722sub signal {
1723 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1724 # probe for availability of Async::Interrupt
1725 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1726 AnyEvent::log 8 => "using Async::Interrupt for race-free signal handling.";
1727
1728 $SIGPIPE_R = new Async::Interrupt::EventPipe;
1729 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R->fileno, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1730
1731 } else {
1732 AnyEvent::log 8 => "using emulated perl signal handling with latency timer.";
1733
1734 if (AnyEvent::WIN32) {
1735 require AnyEvent::Util;
1736
1737 ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_pipe ();
1738 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_R, 1) if $SIGPIPE_R;
1739 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_W, 1) if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1740 } else {
1741 pipe $SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W;
1742 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, AnyEvent::F_SETFL, AnyEvent::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_R;
1743 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, AnyEvent::F_SETFL, AnyEvent::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1744
1745 # not strictly required, as $^F is normally 2, but let's make sure...
1746 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, AnyEvent::F_SETFD, AnyEvent::FD_CLOEXEC;
1747 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, AnyEvent::F_SETFD, AnyEvent::FD_CLOEXEC;
1748 }
1749
1750 $SIGPIPE_R
1751 or Carp::croak "AnyEvent: unable to create a signal reporting pipe: $!\n";
1752
1753 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1754 }
1755
1756 *signal = $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1757 ? sub {
412 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1758 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
413 1759
1760 # async::interrupt
414 my $signal = uc $arg{signal} 1761 my $signal = sig2num $arg{signal};
415 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
416
417 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1762 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1763
1764 $SIG_ASY{$signal} ||= new Async::Interrupt
1765 cb => sub { undef $SIG_EV{$signal} },
1766 signal => $signal,
1767 pipe => [$SIGPIPE_R->filenos],
1768 pipe_autodrain => 0,
1769 ;
1770
1771 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1772 }
1773 : sub {
1774 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1775
1776 # pure perl
1777 my $signal = sig2name $arg{signal};
1778 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1779
418 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub { 1780 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
1781 local $!;
1782 syswrite $SIGPIPE_W, "\x00", 1 unless %SIG_EV;
1783 undef $SIG_EV{$signal};
1784 };
1785
1786 # can't do signal processing without introducing races in pure perl,
1787 # so limit the signal latency.
1788 _sig_add;
1789
1790 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1791 }
1792 ;
1793
1794 *AnyEvent::Base::signal::DESTROY = sub {
1795 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1796
1797 _sig_del;
1798
1799 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1800
1801 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1802 ? delete $SIG_ASY{$signal}
1803 : # delete doesn't work with older perls - they then
1804 # print weird messages, or just unconditionally exit
1805 # instead of getting the default action.
1806 undef $SIG{$signal}
1807 unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1808 };
1809
1810 *_signal_exec = sub {
1811 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1812 ? $SIGPIPE_R->drain
1813 : sysread $SIGPIPE_R, (my $dummy), 9;
1814
1815 while (%SIG_EV) {
1816 for (keys %SIG_EV) {
1817 delete $SIG_EV{$_};
419 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} }; 1818 &$_ for values %{ $SIG_CB{$_} || {} };
1819 }
1820 }
1821 };
420 }; 1822 };
1823 die if $@;
421 1824
422 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal" 1825 &signal
423}
424
425sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
426 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
427
428 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
429
430 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
431} 1826}
432 1827
433# default implementation for ->child 1828# default implementation for ->child
434 1829
435our %PID_CB; 1830our %PID_CB;
436our $CHLD_W; 1831our $CHLD_W;
437our $CHLD_DELAY_W; 1832our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
438our $PID_IDLE;
439our $WNOHANG;
440 1833
441sub _child_wait { 1834# used by many Impl's
442 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) { 1835sub _emit_childstatus($$) {
1836 my (undef, $rpid, $rstatus) = @_;
1837
1838 $_->($rpid, $rstatus)
443 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }), 1839 for values %{ $PID_CB{$rpid} || {} },
444 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} }); 1840 values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} };
1841}
1842
1843sub child {
1844 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1845 *_sigchld = sub {
1846 my $pid;
1847
1848 AnyEvent->_emit_childstatus ($pid, $?)
1849 while ($pid = waitpid -1, WNOHANG) > 0;
1850 };
1851
1852 *child = sub {
1853 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1854
1855 my $pid = $arg{pid};
1856 my $cb = $arg{cb};
1857
1858 $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb+0} = $cb;
1859
1860 unless ($CHLD_W) {
1861 $CHLD_W = AE::signal CHLD => \&_sigchld;
1862 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
1863 &_sigchld;
1864 }
1865
1866 bless [$pid, $cb+0], "AnyEvent::Base::child"
1867 };
1868
1869 *AnyEvent::Base::child::DESTROY = sub {
1870 my ($pid, $icb) = @{$_[0]};
1871
1872 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$icb};
1873 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
1874
1875 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1876 };
1877 };
1878 die if $@;
1879
1880 &child
1881}
1882
1883# idle emulation is done by simply using a timer, regardless
1884# of whether the process is idle or not, and not letting
1885# the callback use more than 50% of the time.
1886sub idle {
1887 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1888 *idle = sub {
1889 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1890
1891 my ($cb, $w, $rcb) = $arg{cb};
1892
1893 $rcb = sub {
1894 if ($cb) {
1895 $w = AE::time;
1896 &$cb;
1897 $w = AE::time - $w;
1898
1899 # never use more then 50% of the time for the idle watcher,
1900 # within some limits
1901 $w = 0.0001 if $w < 0.0001;
1902 $w = 5 if $w > 5;
1903
1904 $w = AE::timer $w, 0, $rcb;
1905 } else {
1906 # clean up...
1907 undef $w;
1908 undef $rcb;
1909 }
1910 };
1911
1912 $w = AE::timer 0.05, 0, $rcb;
1913
1914 bless \\$cb, "AnyEvent::Base::idle"
1915 };
1916
1917 *AnyEvent::Base::idle::DESTROY = sub {
1918 undef $${$_[0]};
1919 };
1920 };
1921 die if $@;
1922
1923 &idle
1924}
1925
1926package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1927
1928our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1929
1930# only to be used for subclassing
1931sub new {
1932 my $class = shift;
1933 bless AnyEvent->condvar (@_), $class
1934}
1935
1936package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1937
1938#use overload
1939# '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1940# fallback => 1;
1941
1942# save 300+ kilobytes by dirtily hardcoding overloading
1943${"AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::OVERLOAD"}{dummy}++; # Register with magic by touching.
1944*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = sub { }; # "Make it findable via fetchmethod."
1945*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::(&{}'} = sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } }; # &{}
1946${'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = 1; # fallback
1947
1948our $WAITING;
1949
1950sub _send {
1951 # nop
1952}
1953
1954sub _wait {
1955 AnyEvent->_poll until $_[0]{_ae_sent};
1956}
1957
1958sub send {
1959 my $cv = shift;
1960 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1961 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1962 $cv->_send;
1963}
1964
1965sub croak {
1966 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1967 $_[0]->send;
1968}
1969
1970sub ready {
1971 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1972}
1973
1974sub recv {
1975 unless ($_[0]{_ae_sent}) {
1976 $WAITING
1977 and Carp::croak "AnyEvent::CondVar: recursive blocking wait attempted";
1978
1979 local $WAITING = 1;
1980 $_[0]->_wait;
445 } 1981 }
446 1982
447 undef $PID_IDLE; 1983 $_[0]{_ae_croak}
448} 1984 and Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak};
449 1985
450sub _sigchld { 1986 wantarray
451 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop. 1987 ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} }
452 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub { 1988 : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
453 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
454 &_child_wait;
455 });
456} 1989}
457 1990
458sub child { 1991sub cb {
459 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1992 my $cv = shift;
460 1993
461 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0) 1994 @_
462 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing"; 1995 and $cv->{_ae_cb} = shift
1996 and $cv->{_ae_sent}
1997 and (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv);
463 1998
464 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1999 $cv->{_ae_cb}
465
466 unless ($WNOHANG) {
467 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
468 }
469
470 unless ($CHLD_W) {
471 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
472 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
473 &_sigchld;
474 }
475
476 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
477} 2000}
478 2001
479sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY { 2002sub begin {
480 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]}; 2003 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
481 2004 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
482 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
483 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
484
485 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
486} 2005}
2006
2007sub end {
2008 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
2009 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
2010}
2011
2012# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
2013*broadcast = \&send;
2014*wait = \&recv;
2015
2016=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
2017
2018In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
2019caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
2020the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
2021checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
2022development.
2023
2024As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
2025executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
2026also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
2027program.
2028
2029The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
2030within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
2031$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
2032so on.
2033
2034=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
2035
2036AnyEvent supports a number of environment variables that tune the
2037runtime behaviour. They are usually evaluated when AnyEvent is
2038loaded, initialised, or a submodule that uses them is loaded. Many of
2039them also cause AnyEvent to load additional modules - for example,
2040C<PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_WRAP> causes the L<AnyEvent::Debug> module to be
2041loaded.
2042
2043All the environment variables documented here start with
2044C<PERL_ANYEVENT_>, which is what AnyEvent considers its own
2045namespace. Other modules are encouraged (but by no means required) to use
2046C<PERL_ANYEVENT_SUBMODULE> if they have registered the AnyEvent::Submodule
2047namespace on CPAN, for any submodule. For example, L<AnyEvent::HTTP> could
2048be expected to use C<PERL_ANYEVENT_HTTP_PROXY> (it should not access env
2049variables starting with C<AE_>, see below).
2050
2051All variables can also be set via the C<AE_> prefix, that is, instead
2052of setting C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> you can also set C<AE_VERBOSE>. In
2053case there is a clash btween anyevent and another program that uses
2054C<AE_something> you can set the corresponding C<PERL_ANYEVENT_something>
2055variable to the empty string, as those variables take precedence.
2056
2057When AnyEvent is first loaded, it copies all C<AE_xxx> env variables
2058to their C<PERL_ANYEVENT_xxx> counterpart unless that variable already
2059exists. If taint mode is on, then AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment
2060variables starting with C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> (or replace them
2061with C<undef> or the empty string, if the corresaponding C<AE_> variable
2062is set).
2063
2064The exact algorithm is currently:
2065
2066 1. if taint mode enabled, delete all PERL_ANYEVENT_xyz variables from %ENV
2067 2. copy over AE_xyz to PERL_ANYEVENT_xyz unless the latter alraedy exists
2068 3. if taint mode enabled, set all PERL_ANYEVENT_xyz variables to undef.
2069
2070This ensures that child processes will not see the C<AE_> variables.
2071
2072The following environment variables are currently known to AnyEvent:
2073
2074=over 4
2075
2076=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
2077
2078By default, AnyEvent will only log messages with loglevel C<3>
2079(C<critical>) or higher (see L<AnyEvent::Log>). You can set this
2080environment variable to a numerical loglevel to make AnyEvent more (or
2081less) talkative.
2082
2083If you want to do more than just set the global logging level
2084you should have a look at C<PERL_ANYEVENT_LOG>, which allows much more
2085complex specifications.
2086
2087When set to C<0> (C<off>), then no messages whatsoever will be logged with
2088the default logging settings.
2089
2090When set to C<5> or higher (C<warn>), causes AnyEvent to warn about
2091unexpected conditions, such as not being able to load the event model
2092specified by C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>, or a guard callback throwing an
2093exception - this is the minimum recommended level.
2094
2095When set to C<7> or higher (info), cause AnyEvent to report which event model it
2096chooses.
2097
2098When set to C<8> or higher (debug), then AnyEvent will report extra information on
2099which optional modules it loads and how it implements certain features.
2100
2101=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_LOG>
2102
2103Accepts rather complex logging specifications. For example, you could log
2104all C<debug> messages of some module to stderr, warnings and above to
2105stderr, and errors and above to syslog, with:
2106
2107 PERL_ANYEVENT_LOG=Some::Module=debug,+log:filter=warn,+%syslog:%syslog=error,syslog
2108
2109For the rather extensive details, see L<AnyEvent::Log>.
2110
2111This variable is evaluated when AnyEvent (or L<AnyEvent::Log>) is loaded,
2112so will take effect even before AnyEvent has initialised itself.
2113
2114Note that specifying this environment variable causes the L<AnyEvent::Log>
2115module to be loaded, while C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> does not, so only
2116using the latter saves a few hundred kB of memory until the first message
2117is being logged.
2118
2119=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
2120
2121AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
2122argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
2123will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
2124check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems,
2125it will croak.
2126
2127In other words, enables "strict" mode.
2128
2129Unlike C<use strict> (or its modern cousin, C<< use L<common::sense>
2130>>, it is definitely recommended to keep it off in production. Keeping
2131C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while developing programs
2132can be very useful, however.
2133
2134=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_SHELL>
2135
2136If this env variable is nonempty, then its contents will be interpreted by
2137C<AnyEvent::Socket::parse_hostport> and C<AnyEvent::Debug::shell> (after
2138replacing every occurance of C<$$> by the process pid). The shell object
2139is saved in C<$AnyEvent::Debug::SHELL>.
2140
2141This happens when the first watcher is created.
2142
2143For example, to bind a debug shell on a unix domain socket in
2144F<< /tmp/debug<pid>.sock >>, you could use this:
2145
2146 PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_SHELL=/tmp/debug\$\$.sock perlprog
2147 # connect with e.g.: socat readline /tmp/debug123.sock
2148
2149Or to bind to tcp port 4545 on localhost:
2150
2151 PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_SHELL=127.0.0.1:4545 perlprog
2152 # connect with e.g.: telnet localhost 4545
2153
2154Note that creating sockets in F</tmp> or on localhost is very unsafe on
2155multiuser systems.
2156
2157=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_DEBUG_WRAP>
2158
2159Can be set to C<0>, C<1> or C<2> and enables wrapping of all watchers for
2160debugging purposes. See C<AnyEvent::Debug::wrap> for details.
2161
2162=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
2163
2164This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
2165auto detection and -probing kicks in.
2166
2167It normally is a string consisting entirely of ASCII letters (e.g. C<EV>
2168or C<IOAsync>). The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended and the
2169resulting module name is loaded and - if the load was successful - used as
2170event model backend. If it fails to load then AnyEvent will proceed with
2171auto detection and -probing.
2172
2173If the string ends with C<::> instead (e.g. C<AnyEvent::Impl::EV::>) then
2174nothing gets prepended and the module name is used as-is (hint: C<::> at
2175the end of a string designates a module name and quotes it appropriately).
2176
2177For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Loop::Perl>) you
2178could start your program like this:
2179
2180 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
2181
2182=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
2183
2184Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
2185for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
2186of auto probing).
2187
2188Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
2189current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
2190used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
2191list.
2192
2193This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
2194against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
2195small, as the program has to handle conenction and other failures anyways.
2196
2197Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
2198but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
2199- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
2200addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
2201IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
2202
2203=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_HOSTS>
2204
2205This variable, if specified, overrides the F</etc/hosts> file used by
2206L<AnyEvent::Socket>C<::resolve_sockaddr>, i.e. hosts aliases will be read
2207from that file instead.
2208
2209=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
2210
2211Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension for
2212DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, especially
2213when DNSSEC is involved, but some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS
2214packets, which is why it is off by default.
2215
2216Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
2217EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
2218
2219=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
2220
2221The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
2222will create in parallel.
2223
2224=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_OUTSTANDING_DNS>
2225
2226The default value for the C<max_outstanding> parameter for the default DNS
2227resolver - this is the maximum number of parallel DNS requests that are
2228sent to the DNS server.
2229
2230=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>
2231
2232Perl has inherently racy signal handling (you can basically choose between
2233losing signals and memory corruption) - pure perl event loops (including
2234C<AnyEvent::Loop>, when C<Async::Interrupt> isn't available) therefore
2235have to poll regularly to avoid losing signals.
2236
2237Some event loops are racy, but don't poll regularly, and some event loops
2238are written in C but are still racy. For those event loops, AnyEvent
2239installs a timer that regularly wakes up the event loop.
2240
2241By default, the interval for this timer is C<10> seconds, but you can
2242override this delay with this environment variable (or by setting
2243the C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY> variable before creating signal
2244watchers).
2245
2246Lower values increase CPU (and energy) usage, higher values can introduce
2247long delays when reaping children or waiting for signals.
2248
2249The L<AnyEvent::Async> module, if available, will be used to avoid this
2250polling (with most event loops).
2251
2252=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_RESOLV_CONF>
2253
2254The absolute path to a F<resolv.conf>-style file to use instead of
2255F</etc/resolv.conf> (or the OS-specific configuration) in the default
2256resolver, or the empty string to select the default configuration.
2257
2258=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_FILE>, C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_PATH>.
2259
2260When neither C<ca_file> nor C<ca_path> was specified during
2261L<AnyEvent::TLS> context creation, and either of these environment
2262variables are nonempty, they will be used to specify CA certificate
2263locations instead of a system-dependent default.
2264
2265=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_GUARD> and C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT>
2266
2267When these are set to C<1>, then the respective modules are not
2268loaded. Mostly good for testing AnyEvent itself.
2269
2270=back
487 2271
488=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE 2272=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
2273
2274This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
2275a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
2276provide AnyEvent compatibility.
489 2277
490If you need to support another event library which isn't directly 2278If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
491supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by 2279supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
492pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of 2280pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
493the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto 2281the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
494C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading 2282C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
495AnyEvent. 2283AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
496 2284
497Example: 2285Example:
498 2286
499 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::]; 2287 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
500 2288
501This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::> 2289This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
502package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is loaded. When 2290package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
2291
503AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it will 2292When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
504first check for the presence of urxvt. 2293will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
2294C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
505 2295
506The class should provide implementations for all watcher types (see 2296The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
507L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> 2297L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
508(Source code) and so on for actual examples, use C<perldoc -m 2298and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
509AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to see the sources). 2299see the sources.
510 2300
2301If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
2302provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
2303
511The above isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt) 2304The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
512uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included in AnyEvent 2305terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
513because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter inside 2306in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
514I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the 2307inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
515I<rxvt-unicode> distribution. 2308I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
516 2309
517I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to 2310I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
518condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will 2311condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
519C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must 2312C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
520not be in an interactive application, so it makes sense. 2313not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
521 2314
522=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
523
524The following environment variables are used by this module:
525
526C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, reports which event
527model gets used.
528
529=head1 EXAMPLE 2315=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
530 2316
531The following program uses an io watcher to read data from stdin, a timer 2317The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
532to display a message once per second, and a condvar to exit the program 2318to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
533when the user enters quit: 2319program when the user enters quit:
534 2320
535 use AnyEvent; 2321 use AnyEvent;
536 2322
537 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar; 2323 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
538 2324
539 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 2325 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
2326 fh => \*STDIN,
2327 poll => 'r',
2328 cb => sub {
540 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 2329 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
541 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 2330 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
542 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 2331 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
543 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 2332 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
2333 },
2334 );
2335
2336 my $time_watcher = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, interval => 1, cb => sub {
2337 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' at most every second
544 }); 2338 });
545 2339
546 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
547
548 sub new_timer {
549 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
550 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
551 &new_timer; # and restart the time
552 });
553 }
554
555 new_timer; # create first timer
556
557 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 2340 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
558 2341
559=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 2342=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
560 2343
561Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 2344Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
562API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 2345API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
612 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 2395 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
613 or die "connection or write error"; 2396 or die "connection or write error";
614 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 2397 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
615 2398
616Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 2399Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
617result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 2400result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
618 2401
619 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 2402 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
620 2403
621 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 2404 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
622 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 2405 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
623 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 2406 $txn->{finished}->send;
624 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 2407 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
625 } 2408 }
626 2409
627The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 2410The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
628request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 2411request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
629data: 2412data:
630 2413
631 $txn->{finished}->wait; 2414 $txn->{finished}->recv;
632 return $txn->{result}; 2415 return $txn->{result};
633 2416
634The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 2417The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
635that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 2418that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
636wether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 2419whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
637and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 2420and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
638problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 2421problems get reported to the code that tries to use the result, not in a
639random callback. 2422random callback.
640 2423
641All of this enables the following usage styles: 2424All of this enables the following usage styles:
642 2425
6431. Blocking: 24261. Blocking:
671 2454
672 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 2455 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
673 2456
674 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 2457 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
675 ... 2458 ...
676 $quit->broadcast; 2459 $quit->send;
677 }); 2460 });
678 2461
679 $quit->wait; 2462 $quit->recv;
2463
2464
2465=head1 BENCHMARKS
2466
2467To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
2468over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
2469of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
2470
2471=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
2472
2473Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
2474through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
2475timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
2476which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
2477
2478Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
2479distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2480for the EV and Perl backends only.
2481
2482=head3 Explanation of the columns
2483
2484I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
2485different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
2486loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
2487and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
2488would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
2489of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
2490
2491I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
2492RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
2493and Perl-based overheads.
2494
2495I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
2496takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
2497all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
2498and memory usage is not included in the figures.
2499
2500I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
2501callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
2502invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
2503signal the end of this phase.
2504
2505I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
2506watcher.
2507
2508=head3 Results
2509
2510 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
2511 EV/EV 100000 223 0.47 0.43 0.27 EV native interface
2512 EV/Any 100000 223 0.48 0.42 0.26 EV + AnyEvent watchers
2513 Coro::EV/Any 100000 223 0.47 0.42 0.26 coroutines + Coro::Signal
2514 Perl/Any 100000 431 2.70 0.74 0.92 pure perl implementation
2515 Event/Event 16000 516 31.16 31.84 0.82 Event native interface
2516 Event/Any 16000 1203 42.61 34.79 1.80 Event + AnyEvent watchers
2517 IOAsync/Any 16000 1911 41.92 27.45 16.81 via IO::Async::Loop::IO_Poll
2518 IOAsync/Any 16000 1726 40.69 26.37 15.25 via IO::Async::Loop::Epoll
2519 Glib/Any 16000 1118 89.00 12.57 51.17 quadratic behaviour
2520 Tk/Any 2000 1346 20.96 10.75 8.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
2521 POE/Any 2000 6951 108.97 795.32 14.24 via POE::Loop::Event
2522 POE/Any 2000 6648 94.79 774.40 575.51 via POE::Loop::Select
2523
2524=head3 Discussion
2525
2526The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
2527well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
2528can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
2529file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
2530the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
2531boost.
2532
2533Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
2534overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
2535the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
2536higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
2537
2538To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
2539benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
2540EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
2541cycles with POE.
2542
2543C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
2544maximal/minimal, respectively. When using the L<AE> API there is zero
2545overhead (when going through the AnyEvent API create is about 5-6 times
2546slower, with other times being equal, so still uses far less memory than
2547any other event loop and is still faster than Event natively).
2548
2549The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
2550constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
2551interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
2552adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
2553performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
2554them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
2555
2556The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
2557cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
2558
2559C<IO::Async> performs admirably well, about on par with C<Event>, even
2560when using its pure perl backend.
2561
2562C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
2563faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
2564C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
2565watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
2566making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
2567(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
2568inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
2569
2570The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
2571more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
2572precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
2573file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
2574employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
2575hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
2576above).
2577
2578C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
2579select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
2580be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
2581memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
2582as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
2583requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
2584invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
2585implementation.
2586
2587The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
2588for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
2589small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
2590optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
2591using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
2592memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
2593design).
2594
2595=head3 Summary
2596
2597=over 4
2598
2599=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
2600(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
2601performance with or without AnyEvent.
2602
2603=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
2604the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
2605does AnyEvent add significant overhead.
2606
2607=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
2608reasonable memory usage.
2609
2610=back
2611
2612=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
2613
2614This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
2615creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
2616timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
2617watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
2618watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
2619
2620The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
2621are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
2622fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
2623timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
2624most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
2625
2626In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
2627(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
2628connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
2629
2630Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
2631distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2632for the EV and Perl backends only.
2633
2634=head3 Explanation of the columns
2635
2636I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
2637each server has a read and write socket end).
2638
2639I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
2640nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
2641
2642I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
2643single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
2644it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
2645a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
2646
2647=head3 Results
2648
2649 name sockets create request
2650 EV 20000 62.66 7.99
2651 Perl 20000 68.32 32.64
2652 IOAsync 20000 174.06 101.15 epoll
2653 IOAsync 20000 174.67 610.84 poll
2654 Event 20000 202.69 242.91
2655 Glib 20000 557.01 1689.52
2656 POE 20000 341.54 12086.32 uses POE::Loop::Event
2657
2658=head3 Discussion
2659
2660This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
2661particular event loop.
2662
2663EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
2664is relatively high, though.
2665
2666Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
2667loops Event and Glib.
2668
2669IO::Async performs very well when using its epoll backend, and still quite
2670good compared to Glib when using its pure perl backend.
2671
2672Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
2673understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
2674the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
2675uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
2676
2677Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
2678clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
2679
2680POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
2681as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
2682it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
2683
2684=head3 Summary
2685
2686=over 4
2687
2688=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
2689
2690=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
2691
2692=back
2693
2694=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
2695
2696While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
2697large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
2698I/O watchers.
2699
2700In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
2701case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
2702one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
2703well.
2704
2705The columns are identical to the previous table.
2706
2707=head3 Results
2708
2709 name sockets create request
2710 EV 16 20.00 6.54
2711 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
2712 Event 16 81.27 35.86
2713 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
2714 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
2715
2716=head3 Discussion
2717
2718The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
2719server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
2720in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
2721to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
2722speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
2723them).
2724
2725EV is again fastest.
2726
2727Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
2728loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
2729matter.
2730
2731POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
2732others.
2733
2734=head3 Summary
2735
2736=over 4
2737
2738=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
2739watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
2740
2741=back
2742
2743=head2 THE IO::Lambda BENCHMARK
2744
2745Recently I was told about the benchmark in the IO::Lambda manpage, which
2746could be misinterpreted to make AnyEvent look bad. In fact, the benchmark
2747simply compares IO::Lambda with POE, and IO::Lambda looks better (which
2748shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody). As such, the benchmark is
2749fine, and mostly shows that the AnyEvent backend from IO::Lambda isn't
2750very optimal. But how would AnyEvent compare when used without the extra
2751baggage? To explore this, I wrote the equivalent benchmark for AnyEvent.
2752
2753The benchmark itself creates an echo-server, and then, for 500 times,
2754connects to the echo server, sends a line, waits for the reply, and then
2755creates the next connection. This is a rather bad benchmark, as it doesn't
2756test the efficiency of the framework or much non-blocking I/O, but it is a
2757benchmark nevertheless.
2758
2759 name runtime
2760 Lambda/select 0.330 sec
2761 + optimized 0.122 sec
2762 Lambda/AnyEvent 0.327 sec
2763 + optimized 0.138 sec
2764 Raw sockets/select 0.077 sec
2765 POE/select, components 0.662 sec
2766 POE/select, raw sockets 0.226 sec
2767 POE/select, optimized 0.404 sec
2768
2769 AnyEvent/select/nb 0.085 sec
2770 AnyEvent/EV/nb 0.068 sec
2771 +state machine 0.134 sec
2772
2773The benchmark is also a bit unfair (my fault): the IO::Lambda/POE
2774benchmarks actually make blocking connects and use 100% blocking I/O,
2775defeating the purpose of an event-based solution. All of the newly
2776written AnyEvent benchmarks use 100% non-blocking connects (using
2777AnyEvent::Socket::tcp_connect and the asynchronous pure perl DNS
2778resolver), so AnyEvent is at a disadvantage here, as non-blocking connects
2779generally require a lot more bookkeeping and event handling than blocking
2780connects (which involve a single syscall only).
2781
2782The last AnyEvent benchmark additionally uses L<AnyEvent::Handle>, which
2783offers similar expressive power as POE and IO::Lambda, using conventional
2784Perl syntax. This means that both the echo server and the client are 100%
2785non-blocking, further placing it at a disadvantage.
2786
2787As you can see, the AnyEvent + EV combination even beats the
2788hand-optimised "raw sockets benchmark", while AnyEvent + its pure perl
2789backend easily beats IO::Lambda and POE.
2790
2791And even the 100% non-blocking version written using the high-level (and
2792slow :) L<AnyEvent::Handle> abstraction beats both POE and IO::Lambda
2793higher level ("unoptimised") abstractions by a large margin, even though
2794it does all of DNS, tcp-connect and socket I/O in a non-blocking way.
2795
2796The two AnyEvent benchmarks programs can be found as F<eg/ae0.pl> and
2797F<eg/ae2.pl> in the AnyEvent distribution, the remaining benchmarks are
2798part of the IO::Lambda distribution and were used without any changes.
2799
2800
2801=head1 SIGNALS
2802
2803AnyEvent currently installs handlers for these signals:
2804
2805=over 4
2806
2807=item SIGCHLD
2808
2809A handler for C<SIGCHLD> is installed by AnyEvent's child watcher
2810emulation for event loops that do not support them natively. Also, some
2811event loops install a similar handler.
2812
2813Additionally, when AnyEvent is loaded and SIGCHLD is set to IGNORE, then
2814AnyEvent will reset it to default, to avoid losing child exit statuses.
2815
2816=item SIGPIPE
2817
2818A no-op handler is installed for C<SIGPIPE> when C<$SIG{PIPE}> is C<undef>
2819when AnyEvent gets loaded.
2820
2821The rationale for this is that AnyEvent users usually do not really depend
2822on SIGPIPE delivery (which is purely an optimisation for shell use, or
2823badly-written programs), but C<SIGPIPE> can cause spurious and rare
2824program exits as a lot of people do not expect C<SIGPIPE> when writing to
2825some random socket.
2826
2827The rationale for installing a no-op handler as opposed to ignoring it is
2828that this way, the handler will be restored to defaults on exec.
2829
2830Feel free to install your own handler, or reset it to defaults.
2831
2832=back
2833
2834=cut
2835
2836undef $SIG{CHLD}
2837 if $SIG{CHLD} eq 'IGNORE';
2838
2839$SIG{PIPE} = sub { }
2840 unless defined $SIG{PIPE};
2841
2842=head1 RECOMMENDED/OPTIONAL MODULES
2843
2844One of AnyEvent's main goals is to be 100% Pure-Perl(tm): only perl (and
2845its built-in modules) are required to use it.
2846
2847That does not mean that AnyEvent won't take advantage of some additional
2848modules if they are installed.
2849
2850This section explains which additional modules will be used, and how they
2851affect AnyEvent's operation.
2852
2853=over 4
2854
2855=item L<Async::Interrupt>
2856
2857This slightly arcane module is used to implement fast signal handling: To
2858my knowledge, there is no way to do completely race-free and quick
2859signal handling in pure perl. To ensure that signals still get
2860delivered, AnyEvent will start an interval timer to wake up perl (and
2861catch the signals) with some delay (default is 10 seconds, look for
2862C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>).
2863
2864If this module is available, then it will be used to implement signal
2865catching, which means that signals will not be delayed, and the event loop
2866will not be interrupted regularly, which is more efficient (and good for
2867battery life on laptops).
2868
2869This affects not just the pure-perl event loop, but also other event loops
2870that have no signal handling on their own (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt).
2871
2872Some event loops (POE, Event, Event::Lib) offer signal watchers natively,
2873and either employ their own workarounds (POE) or use AnyEvent's workaround
2874(using C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>). Installing L<Async::Interrupt>
2875does nothing for those backends.
2876
2877=item L<EV>
2878
2879This module isn't really "optional", as it is simply one of the backend
2880event loops that AnyEvent can use. However, it is simply the best event
2881loop available in terms of features, speed and stability: It supports
2882the AnyEvent API optimally, implements all the watcher types in XS, does
2883automatic timer adjustments even when no monotonic clock is available,
2884can take avdantage of advanced kernel interfaces such as C<epoll> and
2885C<kqueue>, and is the fastest backend I<by far>. You can even embed
2886L<Glib>/L<Gtk2> in it (or vice versa, see L<EV::Glib> and L<Glib::EV>).
2887
2888If you only use backends that rely on another event loop (e.g. C<Tk>),
2889then this module will do nothing for you.
2890
2891=item L<Guard>
2892
2893The guard module, when used, will be used to implement
2894C<AnyEvent::Util::guard>. This speeds up guards considerably (and uses a
2895lot less memory), but otherwise doesn't affect guard operation much. It is
2896purely used for performance.
2897
2898=item L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS>
2899
2900One of these modules is required when you want to read or write JSON data
2901via L<AnyEvent::Handle>. L<JSON> is also written in pure-perl, but can take
2902advantage of the ultra-high-speed L<JSON::XS> module when it is installed.
2903
2904=item L<Net::SSLeay>
2905
2906Implementing TLS/SSL in Perl is certainly interesting, but not very
2907worthwhile: If this module is installed, then L<AnyEvent::Handle> (with
2908the help of L<AnyEvent::TLS>), gains the ability to do TLS/SSL.
2909
2910=item L<Time::HiRes>
2911
2912This module is part of perl since release 5.008. It will be used when the
2913chosen event library does not come with a timing source of its own. The
2914pure-perl event loop (L<AnyEvent::Loop>) will additionally load it to
2915try to use a monotonic clock for timing stability.
2916
2917=back
2918
2919
2920=head1 FORK
2921
2922Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
2923because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll> calls
2924- higher performance APIs such as BSD's kqueue or the dreaded Linux epoll
2925are usually badly thought-out hacks that are incompatible with fork in
2926one way or another. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware and ensures that you
2927continue event-processing in both parent and child (or both, if you know
2928what you are doing).
2929
2930This means that, in general, you cannot fork and do event processing in
2931the child if the event library was initialised before the fork (which
2932usually happens when the first AnyEvent watcher is created, or the library
2933is loaded).
2934
2935If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
2936watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child OR you must do
2937something completely out of the scope of AnyEvent.
2938
2939The problem of doing event processing in the parent I<and> the child
2940is much more complicated: even for backends that I<are> fork-aware or
2941fork-safe, their behaviour is not usually what you want: fork clones all
2942watchers, that means all timers, I/O watchers etc. are active in both
2943parent and child, which is almost never what you want. USing C<exec>
2944to start worker children from some kind of manage rprocess is usually
2945preferred, because it is much easier and cleaner, at the expense of having
2946to have another binary.
2947
2948
2949=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
2950
2951AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
2952$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
2953execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
2954make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
2955will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
2956specified in the variable.
2957
2958You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
2959before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
2960
2961 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
2962
2963 use AnyEvent;
2964
2965Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
2966be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
2967probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
2968$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT}.
2969
2970Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
2971C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
2972enabled.
2973
2974
2975=head1 BUGS
2976
2977Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
2978to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
2979and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
2980memleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
2981pronounced).
2982
680 2983
681=head1 SEE ALSO 2984=head1 SEE ALSO
682 2985
683Event modules: L<Coro::EV>, L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, 2986Tutorial/Introduction: L<AnyEvent::Intro>.
684L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, L<Coro>, L<Tk>.
685 2987
686Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, 2988FAQ: L<AnyEvent::FAQ>.
2989
2990Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util> (misc. grab-bag), L<AnyEvent::Log>
2991(simply logging).
2992
2993Development/Debugging: L<AnyEvent::Strict> (stricter checking),
2994L<AnyEvent::Debug> (interactive shell, watcher tracing).
2995
2996Supported event modules: L<AnyEvent::Loop>, L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>,
2997L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>,
2998L<Qt>, L<POE>, L<FLTK>.
2999
687L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, 3000Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
688L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. 3001L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
3002L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
3003L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync>, L<Anyevent::Impl::Irssi>,
3004L<AnyEvent::Impl::FLTK>.
689 3005
3006Non-blocking handles, pipes, stream sockets, TCP clients and
3007servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>, L<AnyEvent::TLS>.
3008
3009Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
3010
3011Thread support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>.
3012
690Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>. 3013Nontrivial usage examples: L<AnyEvent::GPSD>, L<AnyEvent::IRC>,
3014L<AnyEvent::HTTP>.
691 3015
692=head1 3016
3017=head1 AUTHOR
3018
3019 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
3020 http://home.schmorp.de/
693 3021
694=cut 3022=cut
695 3023
6961 30241
697 3025

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