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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
5EV, Event, Coro::EV, Coro::Event, Glib, Tk, Perl - various supported event loops 5EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Irssi, rxvt-unicode, IO::Async, Qt
6and POE are various supported event loops/environments.
6 7
7=head1 SYNOPSIS 8=head1 SYNOPSIS
8 9
9 use AnyEvent; 10 use AnyEvent;
10 11
12 # file descriptor readable
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub { 13 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r", cb => sub { ... });
14
15 # one-shot or repeating timers
16 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { ... });
17 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, interval => $seconds, cb => ...
18
19 print AnyEvent->now; # prints current event loop time
20 print AnyEvent->time; # think Time::HiRes::time or simply CORE::time.
21
22 # POSIX signal
23 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "TERM", cb => sub { ... });
24
25 # child process exit
26 my $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
27 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
12 ... 28 ...
13 }); 29 });
14 30
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub { 31 # called when event loop idle (if applicable)
16 ... 32 my $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub { ... });
17 });
18 33
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged 34 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
35 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
20 $w->wait; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->broadcast 36 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
21 $w->broadcast; # wake up current and all future wait's 37 # use a condvar in callback mode:
38 $w->cb (sub { $_[0]->recv });
39
40=head1 INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL
41
42This manpage is mainly a reference manual. If you are interested
43in a tutorial or some gentle introduction, have a look at the
44L<AnyEvent::Intro> manpage.
45
46=head1 SUPPORT
47
48There is a mailinglist for discussing all things AnyEvent, and an IRC
49channel, too.
50
51See the AnyEvent project page at the B<Schmorpforge Ta-Sa Software
52Repository>, at L<http://anyevent.schmorp.de>, for more info.
22 53
23=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT) 54=head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24 55
25Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen 56Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
26nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent? 57nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
27 58
28Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of 59Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
29policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>. 60policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
30 61
31First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only 62First 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 63interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use, in a
33pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike, 64pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
34the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general, 65the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
35only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent 66only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
36helps hiding the differences between those event loops. 67cannot change this, but it can hide the differences between those event
68loops.
37 69
38The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event 70The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
39programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a 71programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
40religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your 72religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
41module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event 73module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
42model you use. 74model you use.
43 75
44For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is 76For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
45actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is 77actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
46like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you 78like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
47cannot use anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that 79cannot use anything else, as they are simply incompatible to everything
48isn't itself. What's worse, all the potential users of your module are 80that isn't them. What's worse, all the potential users of your
49I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use. 81module are I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
50 82
51AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works 83AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
52fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together 84fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
53with the rest: POE + IO::Async? no go. Tk + Event? no go. Again: if 85with the rest: POE + IO::Async? No go. Tk + Event? No go. Again: if
54your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it, 86your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
55too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all 87too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
56event models it supports (including stuff like POE and IO::Async, as long 88event models it supports (including stuff like IO::Async, as long as those
57as those use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new 89use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new event loops
58event loops to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof). 90to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
59 91
60In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event 92In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
61model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar 93model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
62modules, you get an enourmous amount of code and strict rules you have to 94modules, you get an enormous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only 95follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
64offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as 96offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
65technically possible. 97technically possible.
66 98
99Of course, AnyEvent comes with a big (and fully optional!) toolbox
100of useful functionality, such as an asynchronous DNS resolver, 100%
101non-blocking connects (even with TLS/SSL, IPv6 and on broken platforms
102such as Windows) and lots of real-world knowledge and workarounds for
103platform bugs and differences.
104
67Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat 105Now, if you I<do want> lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
68useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event 106useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
69model, you should I<not> use this module. 107model, you should I<not> use this module.
70
71 108
72=head1 DESCRIPTION 109=head1 DESCRIPTION
73 110
74L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This 111L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
75allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module 112allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
79The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event> 116The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
80module. 117module.
81 118
82During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries 119During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
83to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the 120to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
84following modules is already loaded: L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>, L<EV>, 121following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
85L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<Tk>. The first one found is used. If none are found, 122L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
86the module tries to load these modules in the stated order. The first one 123L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
124to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
125adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
87that can be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none 126be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
88could be found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which 127found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
89is not very efficient, but should work everywhere. 128very efficient, but should work everywhere.
90 129
91Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading 130Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
92an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make 131an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
93that model the default. For example: 132that model the default. For example:
94 133
101starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to 140starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
102use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly... 141use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
103 142
104The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called 143The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
105C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it 144C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
106explicitly. 145explicitly and enjoy the high availability of that event loop :)
107 146
108=head1 WATCHERS 147=head1 WATCHERS
109 148
110AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that 149AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
111stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as 150stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
112the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc. 151the callback to call, the file handle to watch, etc.
113 152
114These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After 153These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
115creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the 154creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
116callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model 155callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
117is in control). 156is in control).
118 157
158Note that B<callbacks must not permanently change global variables>
159potentially in use by the event loop (such as C<$_> or C<$[>) and that B<<
160callbacks must not C<die> >>. The former is good programming practise in
161Perl and the latter stems from the fact that exception handling differs
162widely between event loops.
163
119To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the 164To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
120variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references 165variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
121to it). 166to it).
122 167
123All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class. 168All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
125Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for 170Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
126example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways. 171example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
127 172
128An any way to achieve that is this pattern: 173An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
129 174
130 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub { 175 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
131 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it 176 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
132 undef $w; 177 undef $w;
133 }); 178 });
134 179
135Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl, 180Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
136my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are 181my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
137declared. 182declared.
138 183
139=head2 IO WATCHERS 184=head2 I/O WATCHERS
185
186 $w = AnyEvent->io (
187 fh => <filehandle_or_fileno>,
188 poll => <"r" or "w">,
189 cb => <callback>,
190 );
140 191
141You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method 192You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
142with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments: 193with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
143 194
144C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch for 195C<fh> is the Perl I<file handle> (or a naked file descriptor) to watch
196for events (AnyEvent might or might not keep a reference to this file
197handle). Note that only file handles pointing to things for which
198non-blocking operation makes sense are allowed. This includes sockets,
199most character devices, pipes, fifos and so on, but not for example files
200or block devices.
201
145events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which 202C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>, which creates a
146creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, 203watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events, respectively.
204
147respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle 205C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle becomes ready.
148becomes ready.
149 206
150File handles will be kept alive, so as long as the watcher exists, the 207Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
151file handle exists, too. 208presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
209callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
152 210
211The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
153It is not allowed to close a file handle as long as any watcher is active 212You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
154on the underlying file descriptor. 213underlying file descriptor.
155 214
156Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should 215Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
157always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file 216always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
158handles. 217handles.
159 218
160Example:
161
162 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher 219Example: wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the
220watcher.
221
163 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub { 222 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
164 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); 223 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
165 warn "read: $input\n"; 224 warn "read: $input\n";
166 undef $w; 225 undef $w;
167 }); 226 });
168 227
169=head2 TIME WATCHERS 228=head2 TIME WATCHERS
170 229
230 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => <seconds>, cb => <callback>);
231
232 $w = AnyEvent->timer (
233 after => <fractional_seconds>,
234 interval => <fractional_seconds>,
235 cb => <callback>,
236 );
237
171You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >> 238You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
172method with the following mandatory arguments: 239method with the following mandatory arguments:
173 240
174C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are 241C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
175supported) should the timer activate. C<cb> the callback to invoke in that 242supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
176case. 243in that case.
177 244
178The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating 245Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
179timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk 246presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
180and Glib). 247callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
181 248
182Example: 249The callback will normally be invoked once only. If you specify another
250parameter, C<interval>, as a strictly positive number (> 0), then the
251callback will be invoked regularly at that interval (in fractional
252seconds) after the first invocation. If C<interval> is specified with a
253false value, then it is treated as if it were missing.
183 254
255The callback will be rescheduled before invoking the callback, but no
256attempt is done to avoid timer drift in most backends, so the interval is
257only approximate.
258
184 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds 259Example: fire an event after 7.7 seconds.
260
185 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub { 261 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
186 warn "timeout\n"; 262 warn "timeout\n";
187 }); 263 });
188 264
189 # to cancel the timer: 265 # to cancel the timer:
190 undef $w; 266 undef $w;
191 267
192Example 2:
193
194 # fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second 268Example 2: fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second.
195 my $w;
196 269
197 my $cb = sub {
198 # cancel the old timer while creating a new one
199 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => $cb); 270 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, interval => 1, cb => sub {
271 warn "timeout\n";
200 }; 272 };
201
202 # start the "loop" by creating the first watcher
203 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, cb => $cb);
204 273
205=head3 TIMING ISSUES 274=head3 TIMING ISSUES
206 275
207There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire 276There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
208in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12 277in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
209o'clock"). 278o'clock").
210 279
211While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they use 280While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
212absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock "jumps", 281use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
213for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from the wrong 2014-01-01 to 282"jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
2142008-01-01, a watcher that you created to fire "after" a second might actually take 283the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
215six years to finally fire. 284fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
216 285
217AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious 286AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
218about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer) and 287about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
219absolute (ev_periodic) timers. 288on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
289timers.
220 290
221AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the 291AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
222AnyEvent API. 292AnyEvent API.
223 293
294AnyEvent has two additional methods that return the "current time":
295
296=over 4
297
298=item AnyEvent->time
299
300This returns the "current wallclock time" as a fractional number of
301seconds since the Epoch (the same thing as C<time> or C<Time::HiRes::time>
302return, and the result is guaranteed to be compatible with those).
303
304It progresses independently of any event loop processing, i.e. each call
305will check the system clock, which usually gets updated frequently.
306
307=item AnyEvent->now
308
309This also returns the "current wallclock time", but unlike C<time>, above,
310this value might change only once per event loop iteration, depending on
311the event loop (most return the same time as C<time>, above). This is the
312time that AnyEvent's timers get scheduled against.
313
314I<In almost all cases (in all cases if you don't care), this is the
315function to call when you want to know the current time.>
316
317This function is also often faster then C<< AnyEvent->time >>, and
318thus the preferred method if you want some timestamp (for example,
319L<AnyEvent::Handle> uses this to update it's activity timeouts).
320
321The rest of this section is only of relevance if you try to be very exact
322with your timing, you can skip it without bad conscience.
323
324For a practical example of when these times differ, consider L<Event::Lib>
325and L<EV> and the following set-up:
326
327The event loop is running and has just invoked one of your callback at
328time=500 (assume no other callbacks delay processing). In your callback,
329you wait a second by executing C<sleep 1> (blocking the process for a
330second) and then (at time=501) you create a relative timer that fires
331after three seconds.
332
333With L<Event::Lib>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> will
334both return C<501>, because that is the current time, and the timer will
335be scheduled to fire at time=504 (C<501> + C<3>).
336
337With L<EV>, C<< AnyEvent->time >> returns C<501> (as that is the current
338time), but C<< AnyEvent->now >> returns C<500>, as that is the time the
339last event processing phase started. With L<EV>, your timer gets scheduled
340to run at time=503 (C<500> + C<3>).
341
342In one sense, L<Event::Lib> is more exact, as it uses the current time
343regardless of any delays introduced by event processing. However, most
344callbacks do not expect large delays in processing, so this causes a
345higher drift (and a lot more system calls to get the current time).
346
347In another sense, L<EV> is more exact, as your timer will be scheduled at
348the same time, regardless of how long event processing actually took.
349
350In either case, if you care (and in most cases, you don't), then you
351can get whatever behaviour you want with any event loop, by taking the
352difference between C<< AnyEvent->time >> and C<< AnyEvent->now >> into
353account.
354
355=item AnyEvent->now_update
356
357Some event loops (such as L<EV> or L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) cache
358the current time for each loop iteration (see the discussion of L<<
359AnyEvent->now >>, above).
360
361When a callback runs for a long time (or when the process sleeps), then
362this "current" time will differ substantially from the real time, which
363might affect timers and time-outs.
364
365When this is the case, you can call this method, which will update the
366event loop's idea of "current time".
367
368A typical example would be a script in a web server (e.g. C<mod_perl>) -
369when mod_perl executes the script, then the event loop will have the wrong
370idea about the "current time" (being potentially far in the past, when the
371script ran the last time). In that case you should arrange a call to C<<
372AnyEvent->now_update >> each time the web server process wakes up again
373(e.g. at the start of your script, or in a handler).
374
375Note that updating the time I<might> cause some events to be handled.
376
377=back
378
224=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS 379=head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
225 380
381 $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => <uppercase_signal_name>, cb => <callback>);
382
226You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal 383You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
227I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to 384I<name> in uppercase and without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl
228be invoked whenever a signal occurs. 385callback to be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
229 386
387Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
388presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
389callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
390
230Multiple signals occurances can be clumped together into one callback 391Multiple signal occurrences can be clumped together into one callback
231invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means 392invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. Synchronous means
232that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process, 393that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
233but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks. 394but it is guaranteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
234 395
235The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal 396The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
236between multiple watchers. 397between multiple watchers, and AnyEvent will ensure that signals will not
398interrupt your program at bad times.
237 399
238This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals 400This watcher might use C<%SIG> (depending on the event loop used),
239directly will likely not work correctly. 401so programs overwriting those signals directly will likely not work
402correctly.
240 403
241Example: exit on SIGINT 404Example: exit on SIGINT
242 405
243 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 }); 406 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
244 407
408=head3 Restart Behaviour
409
410While restart behaviour is up to the event loop implementation, most will
411not restart syscalls (that includes L<Async::Interrupt> and AnyEvent's
412pure perl implementation).
413
414=head3 Safe/Unsafe Signals
415
416Perl signals can be either "safe" (synchronous to opcode handling) or
417"unsafe" (asynchronous) - the former might get delayed indefinitely, the
418latter might corrupt your memory.
419
420AnyEvent signal handlers are, in addition, synchronous to the event loop,
421i.e. they will not interrupt your running perl program but will only be
422called as part of the normal event handling (just like timer, I/O etc.
423callbacks, too).
424
425=head3 Signal Races, Delays and Workarounds
426
427Many event loops (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt, IO::Async) do not support attaching
428callbacks to signals in a generic way, which is a pity, as you cannot
429do race-free signal handling in perl, requiring C libraries for
430this. AnyEvent will try to do it's best, which means in some cases,
431signals will be delayed. The maximum time a signal might be delayed is
432specified in C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY> (default: 10 seconds). This
433variable can be changed only before the first signal watcher is created,
434and should be left alone otherwise. This variable determines how often
435AnyEvent polls for signals (in case a wake-up was missed). Higher values
436will cause fewer spurious wake-ups, which is better for power and CPU
437saving.
438
439All these problems can be avoided by installing the optional
440L<Async::Interrupt> module, which works with most event loops. It will not
441work with inherently broken event loops such as L<Event> or L<Event::Lib>
442(and not with L<POE> currently, as POE does it's own workaround with
443one-second latency). For those, you just have to suffer the delays.
444
245=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS 445=head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
246 446
447 $w = AnyEvent->child (pid => <process id>, cb => <callback>);
448
247You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status. 449You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
248 450
249The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it 451The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (one some backends,
250watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often 452using C<0> watches for any child process exit, on others this will
251as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a 453croak). The watcher will be triggered only when the child process has
252signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid 454finished and an exit status is available, not on any trace events
253and exit status (as returned by waitpid). 455(stopped/continued).
254 456
255Example: wait for pid 1333 457The callback will be called with the pid and exit status (as returned by
458waitpid), so unlike other watcher types, you I<can> rely on child watcher
459callback arguments.
256 460
461This watcher type works by installing a signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>,
462and since it cannot be shared, nothing else should use SIGCHLD or reap
463random child processes (waiting for specific child processes, e.g. inside
464C<system>, is just fine).
465
466There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
467I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
468have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
469
470Not all event models handle this correctly (neither POE nor IO::Async do,
471see their AnyEvent::Impl manpages for details), but even for event models
472that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be loaded before
473the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place). AnyEvent's
474pure perl event loop handles all cases correctly regardless of when you
475start the watcher.
476
477This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first
478thing in an AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one
479watcher before you C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call
480C<AnyEvent::detect>).
481
482As most event loops do not support waiting for child events, they will be
483emulated by AnyEvent in most cases, in which the latency and race problems
484mentioned in the description of signal watchers apply.
485
486Example: fork a process and wait for it
487
488 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
489
490 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
491
257 my $w = AnyEvent->child ( 492 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
258 pid => 1333, 493 pid => $pid,
259 cb => sub { 494 cb => sub {
260 my ($pid, $status) = @_; 495 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
261 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status"; 496 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
497 $done->send;
262 }, 498 },
263 ); 499 );
500
501 # do something else, then wait for process exit
502 $done->recv;
503
504=head2 IDLE WATCHERS
505
506 $w = AnyEvent->idle (cb => <callback>);
507
508Repeatedly invoke the callback after the process becomes idle, until
509either the watcher is destroyed or new events have been detected.
510
511Idle watchers are useful when there is a need to do something, but it
512is not so important (or wise) to do it instantly. The callback will be
513invoked only when there is "nothing better to do", which is usually
514defined as "all outstanding events have been handled and no new events
515have been detected". That means that idle watchers ideally get invoked
516when the event loop has just polled for new events but none have been
517detected. Instead of blocking to wait for more events, the idle watchers
518will be invoked.
519
520Unfortunately, most event loops do not really support idle watchers (only
521EV, Event and Glib do it in a usable fashion) - for the rest, AnyEvent
522will simply call the callback "from time to time".
523
524Example: read lines from STDIN, but only process them when the
525program is otherwise idle:
526
527 my @lines; # read data
528 my $idle_w;
529 my $io_w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
530 push @lines, scalar <STDIN>;
531
532 # start an idle watcher, if not already done
533 $idle_w ||= AnyEvent->idle (cb => sub {
534 # handle only one line, when there are lines left
535 if (my $line = shift @lines) {
536 print "handled when idle: $line";
537 } else {
538 # otherwise disable the idle watcher again
539 undef $idle_w;
540 }
541 });
542 });
264 543
265=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES 544=head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
266 545
546 $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
547
548 $cv->send (<list>);
549 my @res = $cv->recv;
550
551If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
552require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
553will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
554
555AnyEvent is slightly different: it expects somebody else to run the event
556loop and will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
557
558The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
559because they represent a condition that must become true.
560
561Now is probably a good time to look at the examples further below.
562
267Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar >> 563Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
268method without any arguments. 564>> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
565C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
566becomes true, with the condition variable as the first argument (but not
567the results).
269 568
270A condition variable waits for a condition - precisely that the C<< 569After creation, the condition variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
271->broadcast >> method has been called. 570by calling the C<send> method (or calling the condition variable as if it
571were a callback, read about the caveats in the description for the C<<
572->send >> method).
272 573
273They are very useful to signal that a condition has been fulfilled, for 574Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
575optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
576in time where multiple outstanding events have been processed. And yet
577another way to call them is transactions - each condition variable can be
578used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
579a result. And yet some people know them as "futures" - a promise to
580compute/deliver something that you can wait for.
581
582Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
274example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests, 583for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
275then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the 584then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
276availability of results. 585availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
586called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
277 587
278You can also use condition variables to block your main program until 588You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
279an event occurs - for example, you could C<< ->wait >> in your main 589you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
280program until the user clicks the Quit button in your app, which would C<< 590could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
281->broadcast >> the "quit" event. 591button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
282 592
283Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have 593Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
284two pirces of code that call C<< ->wait >> in a round-robbin fashion, you 594two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robin fashion, you
285lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but 595lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
286you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks, 596you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
287as this asks for trouble. 597as this asks for trouble.
288 598
289This object has two methods: 599Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
600used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
601easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
602AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
603it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
290 604
291=over 4 605There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
606eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
607for the send to occur.
292 608
293=item $cv->wait 609Example: wait for a timer.
294
295Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been
296called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers normally.
297
298You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls will return
299immediately.
300
301Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
302(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
303using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
304caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
305condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
306callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
307while still suppporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
308
309Another reason I<never> to C<< ->wait >> in a module is that you cannot
310sensibly have two C<< ->wait >>'s in parallel, as that would require
311multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
312can supply (the coroutine-aware backends L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV> and
313L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent> explicitly support concurrent C<< ->wait >>'s
314from different coroutines, however).
315
316=item $cv->broadcast
317
318Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->wait >> and all further
319calls to C<wait> will (eventually) return after this method has been
320called. If nobody is waiting the broadcast will be remembered..
321
322=back
323
324Example:
325 610
326 # wait till the result is ready 611 # wait till the result is ready
327 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar; 612 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
328 613
329 # do something such as adding a timer 614 # do something such as adding a timer
330 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->broadcast 615 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
331 # when the "result" is ready. 616 # when the "result" is ready.
332 # in this case, we simply use a timer: 617 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
333 my $w = AnyEvent->timer ( 618 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
334 after => 1, 619 after => 1,
335 cb => sub { $result_ready->broadcast }, 620 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
336 ); 621 );
337 622
338 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the watcher 623 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
339 # calls broadcast 624 # calls ->send
340 $result_ready->wait; 625 $result_ready->recv;
626
627Example: wait for a timer, but take advantage of the fact that condition
628variables are also callable directly.
629
630 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
631 my $delay = AnyEvent->timer (after => 5, cb => $done);
632 $done->recv;
633
634Example: Imagine an API that returns a condvar and doesn't support
635callbacks. This is how you make a synchronous call, for example from
636the main program:
637
638 use AnyEvent::CouchDB;
639
640 ...
641
642 my @info = $couchdb->info->recv;
643
644And this is how you would just set a callback to be called whenever the
645results are available:
646
647 $couchdb->info->cb (sub {
648 my @info = $_[0]->recv;
649 });
650
651=head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
652
653These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
654code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
655the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
656uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
657
658=over 4
659
660=item $cv->send (...)
661
662Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
663calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
664called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
665
666If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
667immediately from within send.
668
669Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
670future C<< ->recv >> calls.
671
672Condition variables are overloaded so one can call them directly (as if
673they were a code reference). Calling them directly is the same as calling
674C<send>.
675
676=item $cv->croak ($error)
677
678Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
679C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
680
681This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
682user/consumer. Doing it this way instead of calling C<croak> directly
683delays the error detetcion, but has the overwhelmign advantage that it
684diagnoses the error at the place where the result is expected, and not
685deep in some event clalback without connection to the actual code causing
686the problem.
687
688=item $cv->begin ([group callback])
689
690=item $cv->end
691
692These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
693one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
694to use a condition variable for the whole process.
695
696Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
697C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
698>>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed, passing the
699condvar as first argument. That callback is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send
700>>, but that is not required. If no group callback was set, C<send> will
701be called without any arguments.
702
703You can think of C<< $cv->send >> giving you an OR condition (one call
704sends), while C<< $cv->begin >> and C<< $cv->end >> giving you an AND
705condition (all C<begin> calls must be C<end>'ed before the condvar sends).
706
707Let's start with a simple example: you have two I/O watchers (for example,
708STDOUT and STDERR for a program), and you want to wait for both streams to
709close before activating a condvar:
710
711 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
712
713 $cv->begin; # first watcher
714 my $w1 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh1, cb => sub {
715 defined sysread $fh1, my $buf, 4096
716 or $cv->end;
717 });
718
719 $cv->begin; # second watcher
720 my $w2 = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh2, cb => sub {
721 defined sysread $fh2, my $buf, 4096
722 or $cv->end;
723 });
724
725 $cv->recv;
726
727This works because for every event source (EOF on file handle), there is
728one call to C<begin>, so the condvar waits for all calls to C<end> before
729sending.
730
731The ping example mentioned above is slightly more complicated, as the
732there are results to be passwd back, and the number of tasks that are
733begung can potentially be zero:
734
735 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
736
737 my %result;
738 $cv->begin (sub { shift->send (\%result) });
739
740 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
741 $cv->begin;
742 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
743 $result{$host} = ...;
744 $cv->end;
745 };
746 }
747
748 $cv->end;
749
750This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
751C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
752order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
753each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
754it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
755results arrive is not relevant.
756
757There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
758loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
759to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
760C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
761doesn't execute once).
762
763This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple (but
764potentially none) subrequests: use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set
765the callback and ensure C<end> is called at least once, and then, for each
766subrequest you start, call C<begin> and for each subrequest you finish,
767call C<end>.
768
769=back
770
771=head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
772
773These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
774code awaits the condition.
775
776=over 4
777
778=item $cv->recv
779
780Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
781>> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
782normally.
783
784You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
785will return immediately.
786
787If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
788function will call C<croak>.
789
790In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
791in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
792
793Note that doing a blocking wait in a callback is not supported by any
794event loop, that is, recursive invocation of a blocking C<< ->recv
795>> is not allowed, and the C<recv> call will C<croak> if such a
796condition is detected. This condition can be slightly loosened by using
797L<Coro::AnyEvent>, which allows you to do a blocking C<< ->recv >> from
798any thread that doesn't run the event loop itself.
799
800Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
801(programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
802using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>. Instead, let the
803caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
804condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
805callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
806while still supporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
807
808You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
809only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
810time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
811waits otherwise.
812
813=item $bool = $cv->ready
814
815Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
816C<croak> have been called.
817
818=item $cb = $cv->cb ($cb->($cv))
819
820This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
821replaces it before doing so.
822
823The callback will be called when the condition becomes (or already was)
824"true", i.e. when C<send> or C<croak> are called (or were called), with
825the only argument being the condition variable itself. Calling C<recv>
826inside the callback or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
827
828=back
829
830=head1 SUPPORTED EVENT LOOPS/BACKENDS
831
832The available backend classes are (every class has its own manpage):
833
834=over 4
835
836=item Backends that are autoprobed when no other event loop can be found.
837
838EV is the preferred backend when no other event loop seems to be in
839use. If EV is not installed, then AnyEvent will fall back to its own
840pure-perl implementation, which is available everywhere as it comes with
841AnyEvent itself.
842
843 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (interface to libev, best choice).
844 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
845
846=item Backends that are transparently being picked up when they are used.
847
848These will be used when they are currently loaded when the first watcher
849is created, in which case it is assumed that the application is using
850them. This means that AnyEvent will automatically pick the right backend
851when the main program loads an event module before anything starts to
852create watchers. Nothing special needs to be done by the main program.
853
854 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, very stable, few glitches.
855 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, slow but very stable.
856 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very broken.
857 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
858 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, very slow, some limitations.
859 AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi used when running within irssi.
860
861=item Backends with special needs.
862
863Qt requires the Qt::Application to be instantiated first, but will
864otherwise be picked up automatically. As long as the main program
865instantiates the application before any AnyEvent watchers are created,
866everything should just work.
867
868 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt.
869
870Support for IO::Async can only be partial, as it is too broken and
871architecturally limited to even support the AnyEvent API. It also
872is the only event loop that needs the loop to be set explicitly, so
873it can only be used by a main program knowing about AnyEvent. See
874L<AnyEvent::Impl::Async> for the gory details.
875
876 AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync based on IO::Async, cannot be autoprobed.
877
878=item Event loops that are indirectly supported via other backends.
879
880Some event loops can be supported via other modules:
881
882There is no direct support for WxWidgets (L<Wx>) or L<Prima>.
883
884B<WxWidgets> has no support for watching file handles. However, you can
885use WxWidgets through the POE adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply
886polls 20 times per second, which was considered to be too horrible to even
887consider for AnyEvent.
888
889B<Prima> is not supported as nobody seems to be using it, but it has a POE
890backend, so it can be supported through POE.
891
892AnyEvent knows about both L<Prima> and L<Wx>, however, and will try to
893load L<POE> when detecting them, in the hope that POE will pick them up,
894in which case everything will be automatic.
895
896=back
341 897
342=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS 898=head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
343 899
900These are not normally required to use AnyEvent, but can be useful to
901write AnyEvent extension modules.
902
344=over 4 903=over 4
345 904
346=item $AnyEvent::MODEL 905=item $AnyEvent::MODEL
347 906
348Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it 907Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created, before the
908backend has been autodetected.
909
349contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the 910Afterwards it contains the event model that is being used, which is the
350Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the 911name of the Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one
351C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case 912of the C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the
352AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>). 913case AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode> it
353 914will be C<urxvt::anyevent>).
354The known classes so far are:
355
356 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV based on Coro::EV, best choice.
357 AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent based on Coro::Event, second best choice.
358 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, also best choice).
359 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, also second best choice :)
360 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
361 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
362 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, inefficient but portable.
363 915
364=item AnyEvent::detect 916=item AnyEvent::detect
365 917
366Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model 918Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
367if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would 919if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
368have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at 920have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
369runtime. 921runtime, and not e.g. while initialising of your module.
922
923If you need to do some initialisation before AnyEvent watchers are
924created, use C<post_detect>.
925
926=item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
927
928Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
929autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
930
931The block will be executed I<after> the actual backend has been detected
932(C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> is set), but I<before> any watchers have been
933created, so it is possible to e.g. patch C<@AnyEvent::ISA> or do
934other initialisations - see the sources of L<AnyEvent::Strict> or
935L<AnyEvent::AIO> to see how this is used.
936
937The most common usage is to create some global watchers, without forcing
938event module detection too early, for example, L<AnyEvent::AIO> creates
939and installs the global L<IO::AIO> watcher in a C<post_detect> block to
940avoid autodetecting the event module at load time.
941
942If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
943that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed (or
944C<undef> when the hook was immediately executed). See L<AnyEvent::AIO> for
945a case where this is useful.
946
947Example: Create a watcher for the IO::AIO module and store it in
948C<$WATCHER>. Only do so after the event loop is initialised, though.
949
950 our WATCHER;
951
952 my $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect {
953 $WATCHER = AnyEvent->io (fh => IO::AIO::poll_fileno, poll => 'r', cb => \&IO::AIO::poll_cb);
954 };
955
956 # the ||= is important in case post_detect immediately runs the block,
957 # as to not clobber the newly-created watcher. assigning both watcher and
958 # post_detect guard to the same variable has the advantage of users being
959 # able to just C<undef $WATCHER> if the watcher causes them grief.
960
961 $WATCHER ||= $guard;
962
963=item @AnyEvent::post_detect
964
965If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
966before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
967the event loop has been chosen.
968
969You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
970if it is defined then the event loop has already been detected, and the
971array will be ignored.
972
973Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> when your application allows
974it, as it takes care of these details.
975
976This variable is mainly useful for modules that can do something useful
977when AnyEvent is used and thus want to know when it is initialised, but do
978not need to even load it by default. This array provides the means to hook
979into AnyEvent passively, without loading it.
980
981Example: To load Coro::AnyEvent whenever Coro and AnyEvent are used
982together, you could put this into Coro (this is the actual code used by
983Coro to accomplish this):
984
985 if (defined $AnyEvent::MODEL) {
986 # AnyEvent already initialised, so load Coro::AnyEvent
987 require Coro::AnyEvent;
988 } else {
989 # AnyEvent not yet initialised, so make sure to load Coro::AnyEvent
990 # as soon as it is
991 push @AnyEvent::post_detect, sub { require Coro::AnyEvent };
992 }
370 993
371=back 994=back
372 995
373=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE 996=head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
374 997
378Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will 1001Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
379decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so 1002decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
380by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module 1003by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
381to load the event module first. 1004to load the event module first.
382 1005
383Never call C<< ->wait >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that 1006Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
384the C<< ->broadcast >> method has been called on it already. This is 1007the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
385because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using 1008because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
386events is to stay interactive. 1009events is to stay interactive.
387 1010
388It is fine, however, to call C<< ->wait >> when the user of your module 1011It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
389requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method 1012requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
390called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->wait >> 1013called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
391freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always). 1014freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
392 1015
393=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM 1016=head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
394 1017
395There will always be a single main program - the only place that should 1018There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
397 1020
398If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not 1021If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
399do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent 1022do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
400decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it. 1023decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
401 1024
402If the main program relies on a specific event model. For example, in 1025If the main program relies on a specific event model - for example, in
403Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module. You should load the 1026Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module - you should load the
404event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally 1027event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
405speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that 1028speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
406modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will 1029modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
407decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it 1030decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
408might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself. 1031might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
409 1032
410You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by 1033You can chose to use a pure-perl implementation by loading the
411loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar 1034C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar behaviour
412behaviour everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose is generally better. 1035everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose the model is generally better.
1036
1037=head2 MAINLOOP EMULATION
1038
1039Sometimes (often for short test scripts, or even standalone programs who
1040only want to use AnyEvent), you do not want to run a specific event loop.
1041
1042In that case, you can use a condition variable like this:
1043
1044 AnyEvent->condvar->recv;
1045
1046This has the effect of entering the event loop and looping forever.
1047
1048Note that usually your program has some exit condition, in which case
1049it is better to use the "traditional" approach of storing a condition
1050variable somewhere, waiting for it, and sending it when the program should
1051exit cleanly.
1052
1053
1054=head1 OTHER MODULES
1055
1056The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
1057AnyEvent as a client and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent
1058modules and other event loops in the same program. Some of the modules
1059come with AnyEvent, most are available via CPAN.
1060
1061=over 4
1062
1063=item L<AnyEvent::Util>
1064
1065Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
1066functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
1067
1068=item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
1069
1070Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
1071addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
1072connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
1073
1074=item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
1075
1076Provide read and write buffers, manages watchers for reads and writes,
1077supports raw and formatted I/O, I/O queued and fully transparent and
1078non-blocking SSL/TLS (via L<AnyEvent::TLS>.
1079
1080=item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
1081
1082Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
1083
1084=item L<AnyEvent::HTTP>
1085
1086A simple-to-use HTTP library that is capable of making a lot of concurrent
1087HTTP requests.
1088
1089=item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
1090
1091Provides a simple web application server framework.
1092
1093=item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
1094
1095The fastest ping in the west.
1096
1097=item L<AnyEvent::DBI>
1098
1099Executes L<DBI> requests asynchronously in a proxy process.
1100
1101=item L<AnyEvent::AIO>
1102
1103Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
1104programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses L<IO::AIO> and AnyEvent
1105together.
1106
1107=item L<AnyEvent::BDB>
1108
1109Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::BDB transparently fuses
1110L<BDB> and AnyEvent together.
1111
1112=item L<AnyEvent::GPSD>
1113
1114A non-blocking interface to gpsd, a daemon delivering GPS information.
1115
1116=item L<AnyEvent::IRC>
1117
1118AnyEvent based IRC client module family (replacing the older Net::IRC3).
1119
1120=item L<AnyEvent::XMPP>
1121
1122AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family (replacing the older
1123Net::XMPP2>.
1124
1125=item L<AnyEvent::IGS>
1126
1127A non-blocking interface to the Internet Go Server protocol (used by
1128L<App::IGS>).
1129
1130=item L<Net::FCP>
1131
1132AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
1133of AnyEvent.
1134
1135=item L<Event::ExecFlow>
1136
1137High level API for event-based execution flow control.
1138
1139=item L<Coro>
1140
1141Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
1142
1143=back
413 1144
414=cut 1145=cut
415 1146
416package AnyEvent; 1147package AnyEvent;
417 1148
418no warnings; 1149# basically a tuned-down version of common::sense
419use strict; 1150sub common_sense {
1151 # from common:.sense 1.0
1152 ${^WARNING_BITS} = "\xfc\x3f\x33\x00\x0f\xf3\xcf\xc0\xf3\xfc\x33\x00";
1153 # use strict vars subs - NO UTF-8, as Util.pm doesn't like this atm. (uts46data.pl)
1154 $^H |= 0x00000600;
1155}
420 1156
1157BEGIN { AnyEvent::common_sense }
1158
421use Carp; 1159use Carp ();
422 1160
423our $VERSION = '3.11'; 1161our $VERSION = '5.251';
424our $MODEL; 1162our $MODEL;
425 1163
426our $AUTOLOAD; 1164our $AUTOLOAD;
427our @ISA; 1165our @ISA;
428 1166
429our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
430
431our @REGISTRY; 1167our @REGISTRY;
432 1168
1169our $VERBOSE;
1170
1171BEGIN {
1172 require "AnyEvent/constants.pl";
1173
1174 eval "sub TAINT (){" . (${^TAINT}*1) . "}";
1175
1176 delete @ENV{grep /^PERL_ANYEVENT_/, keys %ENV}
1177 if ${^TAINT};
1178
1179 $VERBOSE = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
1180
1181}
1182
1183our $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY = 10;
1184
1185our %PROTOCOL; # (ipv4|ipv6) => (1|2), higher numbers are preferred
1186
1187{
1188 my $idx;
1189 $PROTOCOL{$_} = ++$idx
1190 for reverse split /\s*,\s*/,
1191 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS} || "ipv4,ipv6";
1192}
1193
433my @models = ( 1194my @models = (
434 [Coro::EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV::],
435 [Coro::Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent::],
436 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::], 1195 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV:: , 1],
1196 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: , 1],
1197 # everything below here will not (normally) be autoprobed
1198 # as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
1199 # and is usually faster
437 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::], 1200 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::, 1],
438 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::], 1201 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib:: , 1], # becomes extremely slow with many watchers
1202 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
1203 [Irssi:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Irssi::], # Irssi has a bogus "Event" package
1204 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], # crashes with many handles
1205 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
1206 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
439 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::], 1207 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
440 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::], 1208 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
1209 # IO::Async is just too broken - we would need workarounds for its
1210 # byzantine signal and broken child handling, among others.
1211 # IO::Async is rather hard to detect, as it doesn't have any
1212 # obvious default class.
1213 [IO::Async:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1214 [IO::Async::Loop:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1215 [IO::Async::Notifier:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
1216 [AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync:: => AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync::], # requires special main program
441); 1217);
442 1218
443our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer condvar broadcast wait signal one_event DESTROY); 1219our %method = map +($_ => 1),
1220 qw(io timer time now now_update signal child idle condvar one_event DESTROY);
1221
1222our @post_detect;
1223
1224sub post_detect(&) {
1225 my ($cb) = @_;
1226
1227 push @post_detect, $cb;
1228
1229 defined wantarray
1230 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::postdetect"
1231 : ()
1232}
1233
1234sub AnyEvent::Util::postdetect::DESTROY {
1235 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
1236}
444 1237
445sub detect() { 1238sub detect() {
1239 # free some memory
1240 *detect = sub () { $MODEL };
1241
1242 local $!; # for good measure
1243 local $SIG{__DIE__};
1244
1245 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
1246 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
1247 if (eval "require $model") {
1248 $MODEL = $model;
1249 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}), using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
1250 } else {
1251 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}):\n$@" if $VERBOSE;
1252 }
1253 }
1254
1255 # check for already loaded models
446 unless ($MODEL) { 1256 unless ($MODEL) {
447 no strict 'refs';
448
449 # check for already loaded models
450 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 1257 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
451 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 1258 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
452 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) { 1259 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
453 if (eval "require $model") { 1260 if (eval "require $model") {
454 $MODEL = $model; 1261 $MODEL = $model;
455 warn "AnyEvent: found model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1; 1262 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
456 last; 1263 last;
457 } 1264 }
458 } 1265 }
459 } 1266 }
460 1267
461 unless ($MODEL) { 1268 unless ($MODEL) {
462 # try to load a model 1269 # try to autoload a model
463
464 for (@REGISTRY, @models) { 1270 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
465 my ($package, $model) = @$_; 1271 my ($package, $model, $autoload) = @$_;
1272 if (
1273 $autoload
466 if (eval "require $package" 1274 and eval "require $package"
467 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0 1275 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
468 and eval "require $model") { 1276 and eval "require $model"
1277 ) {
469 $MODEL = $model; 1278 $MODEL = $model;
470 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed and loaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1; 1279 warn "AnyEvent: autoloaded model '$model', using it.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 2;
471 last; 1280 last;
472 } 1281 }
473 } 1282 }
474 1283
475 $MODEL 1284 $MODEL
476 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."; 1285 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.\n";
477 } 1286 }
478
479 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
480 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
481 } 1287 }
1288
1289 @models = (); # free probe data
1290
1291 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
1292 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
1293
1294 # now nuke some methods that are overriden by the backend.
1295 # SUPER is not allowed.
1296 for (qw(time signal child idle)) {
1297 undef &{"AnyEvent::Base::$_"}
1298 if defined &{"$MODEL\::$_"};
1299 }
1300
1301 require AnyEvent::Strict if $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT};
1302
1303 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
1304
1305 *post_detect = sub(&) {
1306 shift->();
1307
1308 undef
1309 };
482 1310
483 $MODEL 1311 $MODEL
484} 1312}
485 1313
486sub AUTOLOAD { 1314sub AUTOLOAD {
487 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://; 1315 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
488 1316
489 $method{$func} 1317 $method{$func}
490 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects"; 1318 or Carp::croak "$func: not a valid AnyEvent class method";
491 1319
492 detect unless $MODEL; 1320 detect;
493 1321
494 my $class = shift; 1322 my $class = shift;
495 $class->$func (@_); 1323 $class->$func (@_);
496} 1324}
497 1325
1326# utility function to dup a filehandle. this is used by many backends
1327# to support binding more than one watcher per filehandle (they usually
1328# allow only one watcher per fd, so we dup it to get a different one).
1329sub _dupfh($$;$$) {
1330 my ($poll, $fh, $r, $w) = @_;
1331
1332 # cygwin requires the fh mode to be matching, unix doesn't
1333 my ($rw, $mode) = $poll eq "r" ? ($r, "<&") : ($w, ">&");
1334
1335 open my $fh2, $mode, $fh
1336 or die "AnyEvent->io: cannot dup() filehandle in mode '$poll': $!,";
1337
1338 # we assume CLOEXEC is already set by perl in all important cases
1339
1340 ($fh2, $rw)
1341}
1342
1343=head1 SIMPLIFIED AE API
1344
1345Starting with version 5.0, AnyEvent officially supports a second, much
1346simpler, API that is designed to reduce the calling, typing and memory
1347overhead.
1348
1349See the L<AE> manpage for details.
1350
1351=cut
1352
1353package AE;
1354
1355our $VERSION = $AnyEvent::VERSION;
1356
1357sub io($$$) {
1358 AnyEvent->io (fh => $_[0], poll => $_[1] ? "w" : "r", cb => $_[2])
1359}
1360
1361sub timer($$$) {
1362 AnyEvent->timer (after => $_[0], interval => $_[1], cb => $_[2])
1363}
1364
1365sub signal($$) {
1366 AnyEvent->signal (signal => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1367}
1368
1369sub child($$) {
1370 AnyEvent->child (pid => $_[0], cb => $_[1])
1371}
1372
1373sub idle($) {
1374 AnyEvent->idle (cb => $_[0])
1375}
1376
1377sub cv(;&) {
1378 AnyEvent->condvar (@_ ? (cb => $_[0]) : ())
1379}
1380
1381sub now() {
1382 AnyEvent->now
1383}
1384
1385sub now_update() {
1386 AnyEvent->now_update
1387}
1388
1389sub time() {
1390 AnyEvent->time
1391}
1392
498package AnyEvent::Base; 1393package AnyEvent::Base;
499 1394
1395# default implementations for many methods
1396
1397sub time {
1398 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1399 # probe for availability of Time::HiRes
1400 if (eval "use Time::HiRes (); Time::HiRes::time (); 1") {
1401 warn "AnyEvent: using Time::HiRes for sub-second timing accuracy.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1402 *AE::time = \&Time::HiRes::time;
1403 # if (eval "use POSIX (); (POSIX::times())...
1404 } else {
1405 warn "AnyEvent: using built-in time(), WARNING, no sub-second resolution!\n" if $VERBOSE;
1406 *AE::time = sub (){ time }; # epic fail
1407 }
1408
1409 *time = sub { AE::time }; # different prototypes
1410 };
1411 die if $@;
1412
1413 &time
1414}
1415
1416*now = \&time;
1417
1418sub now_update { }
1419
500# default implementation for ->condvar, ->wait, ->broadcast 1420# default implementation for ->condvar
501 1421
502sub condvar { 1422sub condvar {
503 bless \my $flag, "AnyEvent::Base::CondVar" 1423 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
504} 1424 *condvar = sub {
1425 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
1426 };
505 1427
506sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::broadcast { 1428 *AE::cv = sub (;&) {
507 ${$_[0]}++; 1429 bless { @_ ? (_ae_cb => shift) : () }, "AnyEvent::CondVar"
508} 1430 };
1431 };
1432 die if $@;
509 1433
510sub AnyEvent::Base::CondVar::wait { 1434 &condvar
511 AnyEvent->one_event while !${$_[0]};
512} 1435}
513 1436
514# default implementation for ->signal 1437# default implementation for ->signal
515 1438
516our %SIG_CB; 1439our $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1440
1441sub _have_async_interrupt() {
1442 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT = 1*(!$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT}
1443 && eval "use Async::Interrupt 1.02 (); 1")
1444 unless defined $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT;
1445
1446 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1447}
1448
1449our ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W, %SIG_CB, %SIG_EV, $SIG_IO);
1450our (%SIG_ASY, %SIG_ASY_W);
1451our ($SIG_COUNT, $SIG_TW);
1452
1453# install a dummy wakeup watcher to reduce signal catching latency
1454# used by Impls
1455sub _sig_add() {
1456 unless ($SIG_COUNT++) {
1457 # try to align timer on a full-second boundary, if possible
1458 my $NOW = AE::now;
1459
1460 $SIG_TW = AE::timer
1461 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY - ($NOW - int $NOW),
1462 $MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY,
1463 sub { } # just for the PERL_ASYNC_CHECK
1464 ;
1465 }
1466}
1467
1468sub _sig_del {
1469 undef $SIG_TW
1470 unless --$SIG_COUNT;
1471}
1472
1473our $_sig_name_init; $_sig_name_init = sub {
1474 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1475 undef $_sig_name_init;
1476
1477 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1478 *sig2num = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2num;
1479 *sig2name = \&Async::Interrupt::sig2name;
1480 } else {
1481 require Config;
1482
1483 my %signame2num;
1484 @signame2num{ split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_name} }
1485 = split ' ', $Config::Config{sig_num};
1486
1487 my @signum2name;
1488 @signum2name[values %signame2num] = keys %signame2num;
1489
1490 *sig2num = sub($) {
1491 $_[0] > 0 ? shift : $signame2num{+shift}
1492 };
1493 *sig2name = sub ($) {
1494 $_[0] > 0 ? $signum2name[+shift] : shift
1495 };
1496 }
1497 };
1498 die if $@;
1499};
1500
1501sub sig2num ($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2num }
1502sub sig2name($) { &$_sig_name_init; &sig2name }
517 1503
518sub signal { 1504sub signal {
1505 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1506 # probe for availability of Async::Interrupt
1507 if (_have_async_interrupt) {
1508 warn "AnyEvent: using Async::Interrupt for race-free signal handling.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1509
1510 $SIGPIPE_R = new Async::Interrupt::EventPipe;
1511 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R->fileno, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1512
1513 } else {
1514 warn "AnyEvent: using emulated perl signal handling with latency timer.\n" if $VERBOSE >= 8;
1515
1516 if (AnyEvent::WIN32) {
1517 require AnyEvent::Util;
1518
1519 ($SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_pipe ();
1520 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_R, 1) if $SIGPIPE_R;
1521 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking ($SIGPIPE_W, 1) if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1522 } else {
1523 pipe $SIGPIPE_R, $SIGPIPE_W;
1524 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, AnyEvent::F_SETFL, AnyEvent::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_R;
1525 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, AnyEvent::F_SETFL, AnyEvent::O_NONBLOCK if $SIGPIPE_W; # just in case
1526
1527 # not strictly required, as $^F is normally 2, but let's make sure...
1528 fcntl $SIGPIPE_R, AnyEvent::F_SETFD, AnyEvent::FD_CLOEXEC;
1529 fcntl $SIGPIPE_W, AnyEvent::F_SETFD, AnyEvent::FD_CLOEXEC;
1530 }
1531
1532 $SIGPIPE_R
1533 or Carp::croak "AnyEvent: unable to create a signal reporting pipe: $!\n";
1534
1535 $SIG_IO = AE::io $SIGPIPE_R, 0, \&_signal_exec;
1536 }
1537
1538 *signal = $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1539 ? sub {
519 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1540 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
520 1541
1542 # async::interrupt
521 my $signal = uc $arg{signal} 1543 my $signal = sig2num $arg{signal};
522 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
523
524 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1544 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1545
1546 $SIG_ASY{$signal} ||= new Async::Interrupt
1547 cb => sub { undef $SIG_EV{$signal} },
1548 signal => $signal,
1549 pipe => [$SIGPIPE_R->filenos],
1550 pipe_autodrain => 0,
1551 ;
1552
1553 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1554 }
1555 : sub {
1556 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1557
1558 # pure perl
1559 my $signal = sig2name $arg{signal};
1560 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
1561
525 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub { 1562 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
1563 local $!;
1564 syswrite $SIGPIPE_W, "\x00", 1 unless %SIG_EV;
1565 undef $SIG_EV{$signal};
1566 };
1567
1568 # can't do signal processing without introducing races in pure perl,
1569 # so limit the signal latency.
1570 _sig_add;
1571
1572 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::signal"
1573 }
1574 ;
1575
1576 *AnyEvent::Base::signal::DESTROY = sub {
1577 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
1578
1579 _sig_del;
1580
1581 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
1582
1583 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1584 ? delete $SIG_ASY{$signal}
1585 : # delete doesn't work with older perls - they then
1586 # print weird messages, or just unconditionally exit
1587 # instead of getting the default action.
1588 undef $SIG{$signal}
1589 unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
1590 };
1591
1592 *_signal_exec = sub {
1593 $HAVE_ASYNC_INTERRUPT
1594 ? $SIGPIPE_R->drain
1595 : sysread $SIGPIPE_R, (my $dummy), 9;
1596
1597 while (%SIG_EV) {
1598 for (keys %SIG_EV) {
1599 delete $SIG_EV{$_};
526 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} }; 1600 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$_} || {} };
1601 }
1602 }
1603 };
527 }; 1604 };
1605 die if $@;
528 1606
529 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal" 1607 &signal
530}
531
532sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
533 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
534
535 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
536
537 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
538} 1608}
539 1609
540# default implementation for ->child 1610# default implementation for ->child
541 1611
542our %PID_CB; 1612our %PID_CB;
543our $CHLD_W; 1613our $CHLD_W;
544our $CHLD_DELAY_W; 1614our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
545our $PID_IDLE;
546our $WNOHANG; 1615our $WNOHANG;
547 1616
548sub _child_wait { 1617# used by many Impl's
549 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) { 1618sub _emit_childstatus($$) {
1619 my (undef, $rpid, $rstatus) = @_;
1620
1621 $_->($rpid, $rstatus)
550 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }), 1622 for values %{ $PID_CB{$rpid} || {} },
551 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} }); 1623 values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} };
552 }
553
554 undef $PID_IDLE;
555}
556
557sub _sigchld {
558 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
559 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
560 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
561 &_child_wait;
562 });
563} 1624}
564 1625
565sub child { 1626sub child {
1627 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1628 *_sigchld = sub {
1629 my $pid;
1630
1631 AnyEvent->_emit_childstatus ($pid, $?)
1632 while ($pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG) > 0;
1633 };
1634
1635 *child = sub {
566 my (undef, %arg) = @_; 1636 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
567 1637
568 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0) 1638 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
569 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing"; 1639 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
570 1640
571 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb}; 1641 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
572 1642
573 unless ($WNOHANG) { 1643 # WNOHANG is almost cetrainly 1 everywhere
574 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1; 1644 $WNOHANG ||= $^O =~ /^(?:openbsd|netbsd|linux|freebsd|cygwin|MSWin32)$/
575 } 1645 ? 1
1646 : eval { local $SIG{__DIE__}; require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
576 1647
577 unless ($CHLD_W) { 1648 unless ($CHLD_W) {
578 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld); 1649 $CHLD_W = AE::signal CHLD => \&_sigchld;
579 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round 1650 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
580 &_sigchld; 1651 &_sigchld;
581 } 1652 }
582 1653
583 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child" 1654 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::child"
584} 1655 };
585 1656
586sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY { 1657 *AnyEvent::Base::child::DESTROY = sub {
587 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]}; 1658 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
588 1659
589 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb}; 1660 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
590 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} }; 1661 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
591 1662
592 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB; 1663 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
1664 };
1665 };
1666 die if $@;
1667
1668 &child
593} 1669}
1670
1671# idle emulation is done by simply using a timer, regardless
1672# of whether the process is idle or not, and not letting
1673# the callback use more than 50% of the time.
1674sub idle {
1675 eval q{ # poor man's autoloading {}
1676 *idle = sub {
1677 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
1678
1679 my ($cb, $w, $rcb) = $arg{cb};
1680
1681 $rcb = sub {
1682 if ($cb) {
1683 $w = _time;
1684 &$cb;
1685 $w = _time - $w;
1686
1687 # never use more then 50% of the time for the idle watcher,
1688 # within some limits
1689 $w = 0.0001 if $w < 0.0001;
1690 $w = 5 if $w > 5;
1691
1692 $w = AE::timer $w, 0, $rcb;
1693 } else {
1694 # clean up...
1695 undef $w;
1696 undef $rcb;
1697 }
1698 };
1699
1700 $w = AE::timer 0.05, 0, $rcb;
1701
1702 bless \\$cb, "AnyEvent::Base::idle"
1703 };
1704
1705 *AnyEvent::Base::idle::DESTROY = sub {
1706 undef $${$_[0]};
1707 };
1708 };
1709 die if $@;
1710
1711 &idle
1712}
1713
1714package AnyEvent::CondVar;
1715
1716our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
1717
1718package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
1719
1720#use overload
1721# '&{}' => sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } },
1722# fallback => 1;
1723
1724# save 300+ kilobytes by dirtily hardcoding overloading
1725${"AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::OVERLOAD"}{dummy}++; # Register with magic by touching.
1726*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = sub { }; # "Make it findable via fetchmethod."
1727*{'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::(&{}'} = sub { my $self = shift; sub { $self->send (@_) } }; # &{}
1728${'AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::()'} = 1; # fallback
1729
1730our $WAITING;
1731
1732sub _send {
1733 # nop
1734}
1735
1736sub send {
1737 my $cv = shift;
1738 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
1739 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
1740 $cv->_send;
1741}
1742
1743sub croak {
1744 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
1745 $_[0]->send;
1746}
1747
1748sub ready {
1749 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
1750}
1751
1752sub _wait {
1753 $WAITING
1754 and !$_[0]{_ae_sent}
1755 and Carp::croak "AnyEvent::CondVar: recursive blocking wait detected";
1756
1757 local $WAITING = 1;
1758 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
1759}
1760
1761sub recv {
1762 $_[0]->_wait;
1763
1764 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
1765 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
1766}
1767
1768sub cb {
1769 my $cv = shift;
1770
1771 @_
1772 and $cv->{_ae_cb} = shift
1773 and $cv->{_ae_sent}
1774 and (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv);
1775
1776 $cv->{_ae_cb}
1777}
1778
1779sub begin {
1780 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1781 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
1782}
1783
1784sub end {
1785 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
1786 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
1787}
1788
1789# undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
1790*broadcast = \&send;
1791*wait = \&_wait;
1792
1793=head1 ERROR AND EXCEPTION HANDLING
1794
1795In general, AnyEvent does not do any error handling - it relies on the
1796caller to do that if required. The L<AnyEvent::Strict> module (see also
1797the C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT> environment variable, below) provides strict
1798checking of all AnyEvent methods, however, which is highly useful during
1799development.
1800
1801As for exception handling (i.e. runtime errors and exceptions thrown while
1802executing a callback), this is not only highly event-loop specific, but
1803also not in any way wrapped by this module, as this is the job of the main
1804program.
1805
1806The pure perl event loop simply re-throws the exception (usually
1807within C<< condvar->recv >>), the L<Event> and L<EV> modules call C<<
1808$Event/EV::DIED->() >>, L<Glib> uses C<< install_exception_handler >> and
1809so on.
1810
1811=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1812
1813The following environment variables are used by this module or its
1814submodules.
1815
1816Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
1817C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
1818enabled.
1819
1820=over 4
1821
1822=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1823
1824By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1825conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1826talkative.
1827
1828When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1829conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1830C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1831
1832When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1833model it chooses.
1834
1835When set to C<8> or higher, then AnyEvent will report extra information on
1836which optional modules it loads and how it implements certain features.
1837
1838=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT>
1839
1840AnyEvent does not do much argument checking by default, as thorough
1841argument checking is very costly. Setting this variable to a true value
1842will cause AnyEvent to load C<AnyEvent::Strict> and then to thoroughly
1843check the arguments passed to most method calls. If it finds any problems,
1844it will croak.
1845
1846In other words, enables "strict" mode.
1847
1848Unlike C<use strict> (or it's modern cousin, C<< use L<common::sense>
1849>>, it is definitely recommended to keep it off in production. Keeping
1850C<PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT=1> in your environment while developing programs
1851can be very useful, however.
1852
1853=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1854
1855This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1856auto detection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1857entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1858and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1859used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1860auto detection and -probing.
1861
1862This functionality might change in future versions.
1863
1864For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1865could start your program like this:
1866
1867 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1868
1869=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1870
1871Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1872for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1873of auto probing).
1874
1875Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1876current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1877used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1878list.
1879
1880This variable can effectively be used for denial-of-service attacks
1881against local programs (e.g. when setuid), although the impact is likely
1882small, as the program has to handle conenction and other failures anyways.
1883
1884Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1885but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1886- only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1887addresses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1888IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1889
1890=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_EDNS0>
1891
1892Used by L<AnyEvent::DNS> to decide whether to use the EDNS0 extension
1893for DNS. This extension is generally useful to reduce DNS traffic, but
1894some (broken) firewalls drop such DNS packets, which is why it is off by
1895default.
1896
1897Setting this variable to C<1> will cause L<AnyEvent::DNS> to announce
1898EDNS0 in its DNS requests.
1899
1900=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_FORKS>
1901
1902The maximum number of child processes that C<AnyEvent::Util::fork_call>
1903will create in parallel.
1904
1905=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MAX_OUTSTANDING_DNS>
1906
1907The default value for the C<max_outstanding> parameter for the default DNS
1908resolver - this is the maximum number of parallel DNS requests that are
1909sent to the DNS server.
1910
1911=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_RESOLV_CONF>
1912
1913The file to use instead of F</etc/resolv.conf> (or OS-specific
1914configuration) in the default resolver. When set to the empty string, no
1915default config will be used.
1916
1917=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_FILE>, C<PERL_ANYEVENT_CA_PATH>.
1918
1919When neither C<ca_file> nor C<ca_path> was specified during
1920L<AnyEvent::TLS> context creation, and either of these environment
1921variables exist, they will be used to specify CA certificate locations
1922instead of a system-dependent default.
1923
1924=item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_GUARD> and C<PERL_ANYEVENT_AVOID_ASYNC_INTERRUPT>
1925
1926When these are set to C<1>, then the respective modules are not
1927loaded. Mostly good for testing AnyEvent itself.
1928
1929=back
594 1930
595=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE 1931=head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
596 1932
597This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in 1933This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
598a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to 1934a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
633I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to 1969I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
634condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will 1970condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
635C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must 1971C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
636not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense. 1972not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
637 1973
638=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
639
640The following environment variables are used by this module:
641
642C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE> when set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to
643report to STDERR which event model it chooses.
644
645=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM 1974=head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
646 1975
647The following program uses an IO watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer 1976The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
648to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the 1977to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
649program when the user enters quit: 1978program when the user enters quit:
650 1979
651 use AnyEvent; 1980 use AnyEvent;
652 1981
657 poll => 'r', 1986 poll => 'r',
658 cb => sub { 1987 cb => sub {
659 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r> 1988 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
660 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line 1989 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
661 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read 1990 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
662 $cv->broadcast if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i 1991 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
663 }, 1992 },
664 ); 1993 );
665 1994
666 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
667
668 sub new_timer {
669 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub { 1995 my $time_watcher = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, interval => 1, cb => sub {
670 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second 1996 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' at most every second
671 &new_timer; # and restart the time
672 }); 1997 });
673 }
674 1998
675 new_timer; # create first timer
676
677 $cv->wait; # wait until user enters /^q/i 1999 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
678 2000
679=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 2001=head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
680 2002
681Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following 2003Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
682API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http: 2004API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
732 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request} 2054 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
733 or die "connection or write error"; 2055 or die "connection or write error";
734 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r }); 2056 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
735 2057
736Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the 2058Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
737result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished: 2059result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:
738 2060
739 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf}; 2061 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
740 2062
741 if (end-of-file or data complete) { 2063 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
742 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf}; 2064 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
743 $txn->{finished}->broadcast; 2065 $txn->{finished}->send;
744 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback 2066 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
745 } 2067 }
746 2068
747The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the 2069The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
748request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the 2070request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
749data: 2071data:
750 2072
751 $txn->{finished}->wait; 2073 $txn->{finished}->recv;
752 return $txn->{result}; 2074 return $txn->{result};
753 2075
754The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions) 2076The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
755that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects 2077that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
756whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object) 2078whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
757and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other 2079and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
758problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a 2080problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
759random callback. 2081random callback.
760 2082
791 2113
792 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar; 2114 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
793 2115
794 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub { 2116 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
795 ... 2117 ...
796 $quit->broadcast; 2118 $quit->send;
797 }); 2119 });
798 2120
799 $quit->wait; 2121 $quit->recv;
2122
2123
2124=head1 BENCHMARKS
2125
2126To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
2127over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
2128of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
2129
2130=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
2131
2132Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
2133through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
2134timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
2135which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
2136
2137Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
2138distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2139for the EV and Perl backends only.
2140
2141=head3 Explanation of the columns
2142
2143I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
2144different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
2145loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
2146and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
2147would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
2148of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
2149
2150I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
2151RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
2152and Perl-based overheads.
2153
2154I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
2155takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
2156all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
2157and memory usage is not included in the figures.
2158
2159I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
2160callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
2161invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
2162signal the end of this phase.
2163
2164I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
2165watcher.
2166
2167=head3 Results
2168
2169 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
2170 EV/EV 100000 223 0.47 0.43 0.27 EV native interface
2171 EV/Any 100000 223 0.48 0.42 0.26 EV + AnyEvent watchers
2172 Coro::EV/Any 100000 223 0.47 0.42 0.26 coroutines + Coro::Signal
2173 Perl/Any 100000 431 2.70 0.74 0.92 pure perl implementation
2174 Event/Event 16000 516 31.16 31.84 0.82 Event native interface
2175 Event/Any 16000 1203 42.61 34.79 1.80 Event + AnyEvent watchers
2176 IOAsync/Any 16000 1911 41.92 27.45 16.81 via IO::Async::Loop::IO_Poll
2177 IOAsync/Any 16000 1726 40.69 26.37 15.25 via IO::Async::Loop::Epoll
2178 Glib/Any 16000 1118 89.00 12.57 51.17 quadratic behaviour
2179 Tk/Any 2000 1346 20.96 10.75 8.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
2180 POE/Any 2000 6951 108.97 795.32 14.24 via POE::Loop::Event
2181 POE/Any 2000 6648 94.79 774.40 575.51 via POE::Loop::Select
2182
2183=head3 Discussion
2184
2185The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
2186well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
2187can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
2188file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
2189the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
2190boost.
2191
2192Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
2193overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
2194the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
2195higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
2196
2197To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
2198benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
2199EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
2200cycles with POE.
2201
2202C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
2203maximal/minimal, respectively. When using the L<AE> API there is zero
2204overhead (when going through the AnyEvent API create is about 5-6 times
2205slower, with other times being equal, so still uses far less memory than
2206any other event loop and is still faster than Event natively).
2207
2208The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
2209constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
2210interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
2211adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
2212performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
2213them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
2214
2215The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
2216cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
2217
2218C<IO::Async> performs admirably well, about on par with C<Event>, even
2219when using its pure perl backend.
2220
2221C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
2222faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
2223C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
2224watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
2225making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
2226(note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
2227inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
2228
2229The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
2230more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
2231precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
2232file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
2233employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
2234hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
2235above).
2236
2237C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
2238select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
2239be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
2240memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
2241as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
2242requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
2243invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
2244implementation.
2245
2246The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
2247for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
2248small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
2249optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
2250using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
2251memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
2252design).
2253
2254=head3 Summary
2255
2256=over 4
2257
2258=item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
2259(even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
2260performance with or without AnyEvent.
2261
2262=item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
2263the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
2264adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
2265
2266=item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
2267reasonable memory usage.
2268
2269=back
2270
2271=head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
2272
2273This benchmark actually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
2274creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socket pair, a
2275timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
2276watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
2277watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
2278
2279The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
2280are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
2281fds for each loop iteration, but which fds these are is random). The
2282timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
2283most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
2284
2285In this benchmark, we use 10000 socket pairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
2286(1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
2287connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
2288
2289Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
2290distribution. It uses the L<AE> interface, which makes a real difference
2291for the EV and Perl backends only.
2292
2293=head3 Explanation of the columns
2294
2295I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
2296each server has a read and write socket end).
2297
2298I<create> is the time it takes to create a socket pair (which is
2299nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
2300
2301I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
2302single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
2303it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
2304a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
2305
2306=head3 Results
2307
2308 name sockets create request
2309 EV 20000 62.66 7.99
2310 Perl 20000 68.32 32.64
2311 IOAsync 20000 174.06 101.15 epoll
2312 IOAsync 20000 174.67 610.84 poll
2313 Event 20000 202.69 242.91
2314 Glib 20000 557.01 1689.52
2315 POE 20000 341.54 12086.32 uses POE::Loop::Event
2316
2317=head3 Discussion
2318
2319This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
2320particular event loop.
2321
2322EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
2323is relatively high, though.
2324
2325Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
2326loops Event and Glib.
2327
2328IO::Async performs very well when using its epoll backend, and still quite
2329good compared to Glib when using its pure perl backend.
2330
2331Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
2332understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
2333the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
2334uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
2335
2336Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
2337clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
2338
2339POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
2340as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
2341it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
2342
2343=head3 Summary
2344
2345=over 4
2346
2347=item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
2348
2349=item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
2350
2351=back
2352
2353=head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
2354
2355While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
2356large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
2357I/O watchers.
2358
2359In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
2360case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
2361one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
2362well.
2363
2364The columns are identical to the previous table.
2365
2366=head3 Results
2367
2368 name sockets create request
2369 EV 16 20.00 6.54
2370 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
2371 Event 16 81.27 35.86
2372 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
2373 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
2374
2375=head3 Discussion
2376
2377The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
2378server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
2379in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
2380to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
2381speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
2382them).
2383
2384EV is again fastest.
2385
2386Perl again comes second. It is noticeably faster than the C-based event
2387loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
2388matter.
2389
2390POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
2391others.
2392
2393=head3 Summary
2394
2395=over 4
2396
2397=item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
2398watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
2399
2400=back
2401
2402=head2 THE IO::Lambda BENCHMARK
2403
2404Recently I was told about the benchmark in the IO::Lambda manpage, which
2405could be misinterpreted to make AnyEvent look bad. In fact, the benchmark
2406simply compares IO::Lambda with POE, and IO::Lambda looks better (which
2407shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody). As such, the benchmark is
2408fine, and mostly shows that the AnyEvent backend from IO::Lambda isn't
2409very optimal. But how would AnyEvent compare when used without the extra
2410baggage? To explore this, I wrote the equivalent benchmark for AnyEvent.
2411
2412The benchmark itself creates an echo-server, and then, for 500 times,
2413connects to the echo server, sends a line, waits for the reply, and then
2414creates the next connection. This is a rather bad benchmark, as it doesn't
2415test the efficiency of the framework or much non-blocking I/O, but it is a
2416benchmark nevertheless.
2417
2418 name runtime
2419 Lambda/select 0.330 sec
2420 + optimized 0.122 sec
2421 Lambda/AnyEvent 0.327 sec
2422 + optimized 0.138 sec
2423 Raw sockets/select 0.077 sec
2424 POE/select, components 0.662 sec
2425 POE/select, raw sockets 0.226 sec
2426 POE/select, optimized 0.404 sec
2427
2428 AnyEvent/select/nb 0.085 sec
2429 AnyEvent/EV/nb 0.068 sec
2430 +state machine 0.134 sec
2431
2432The benchmark is also a bit unfair (my fault): the IO::Lambda/POE
2433benchmarks actually make blocking connects and use 100% blocking I/O,
2434defeating the purpose of an event-based solution. All of the newly
2435written AnyEvent benchmarks use 100% non-blocking connects (using
2436AnyEvent::Socket::tcp_connect and the asynchronous pure perl DNS
2437resolver), so AnyEvent is at a disadvantage here, as non-blocking connects
2438generally require a lot more bookkeeping and event handling than blocking
2439connects (which involve a single syscall only).
2440
2441The last AnyEvent benchmark additionally uses L<AnyEvent::Handle>, which
2442offers similar expressive power as POE and IO::Lambda, using conventional
2443Perl syntax. This means that both the echo server and the client are 100%
2444non-blocking, further placing it at a disadvantage.
2445
2446As you can see, the AnyEvent + EV combination even beats the
2447hand-optimised "raw sockets benchmark", while AnyEvent + its pure perl
2448backend easily beats IO::Lambda and POE.
2449
2450And even the 100% non-blocking version written using the high-level (and
2451slow :) L<AnyEvent::Handle> abstraction beats both POE and IO::Lambda
2452higher level ("unoptimised") abstractions by a large margin, even though
2453it does all of DNS, tcp-connect and socket I/O in a non-blocking way.
2454
2455The two AnyEvent benchmarks programs can be found as F<eg/ae0.pl> and
2456F<eg/ae2.pl> in the AnyEvent distribution, the remaining benchmarks are
2457part of the IO::Lambda distribution and were used without any changes.
2458
2459
2460=head1 SIGNALS
2461
2462AnyEvent currently installs handlers for these signals:
2463
2464=over 4
2465
2466=item SIGCHLD
2467
2468A handler for C<SIGCHLD> is installed by AnyEvent's child watcher
2469emulation for event loops that do not support them natively. Also, some
2470event loops install a similar handler.
2471
2472Additionally, when AnyEvent is loaded and SIGCHLD is set to IGNORE, then
2473AnyEvent will reset it to default, to avoid losing child exit statuses.
2474
2475=item SIGPIPE
2476
2477A no-op handler is installed for C<SIGPIPE> when C<$SIG{PIPE}> is C<undef>
2478when AnyEvent gets loaded.
2479
2480The rationale for this is that AnyEvent users usually do not really depend
2481on SIGPIPE delivery (which is purely an optimisation for shell use, or
2482badly-written programs), but C<SIGPIPE> can cause spurious and rare
2483program exits as a lot of people do not expect C<SIGPIPE> when writing to
2484some random socket.
2485
2486The rationale for installing a no-op handler as opposed to ignoring it is
2487that this way, the handler will be restored to defaults on exec.
2488
2489Feel free to install your own handler, or reset it to defaults.
2490
2491=back
2492
2493=cut
2494
2495undef $SIG{CHLD}
2496 if $SIG{CHLD} eq 'IGNORE';
2497
2498$SIG{PIPE} = sub { }
2499 unless defined $SIG{PIPE};
2500
2501=head1 RECOMMENDED/OPTIONAL MODULES
2502
2503One of AnyEvent's main goals is to be 100% Pure-Perl(tm): only perl (and
2504it's built-in modules) are required to use it.
2505
2506That does not mean that AnyEvent won't take advantage of some additional
2507modules if they are installed.
2508
2509This section explains which additional modules will be used, and how they
2510affect AnyEvent's operation.
2511
2512=over 4
2513
2514=item L<Async::Interrupt>
2515
2516This slightly arcane module is used to implement fast signal handling: To
2517my knowledge, there is no way to do completely race-free and quick
2518signal handling in pure perl. To ensure that signals still get
2519delivered, AnyEvent will start an interval timer to wake up perl (and
2520catch the signals) with some delay (default is 10 seconds, look for
2521C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>).
2522
2523If this module is available, then it will be used to implement signal
2524catching, which means that signals will not be delayed, and the event loop
2525will not be interrupted regularly, which is more efficient (and good for
2526battery life on laptops).
2527
2528This affects not just the pure-perl event loop, but also other event loops
2529that have no signal handling on their own (e.g. Glib, Tk, Qt).
2530
2531Some event loops (POE, Event, Event::Lib) offer signal watchers natively,
2532and either employ their own workarounds (POE) or use AnyEvent's workaround
2533(using C<$AnyEvent::MAX_SIGNAL_LATENCY>). Installing L<Async::Interrupt>
2534does nothing for those backends.
2535
2536=item L<EV>
2537
2538This module isn't really "optional", as it is simply one of the backend
2539event loops that AnyEvent can use. However, it is simply the best event
2540loop available in terms of features, speed and stability: It supports
2541the AnyEvent API optimally, implements all the watcher types in XS, does
2542automatic timer adjustments even when no monotonic clock is available,
2543can take avdantage of advanced kernel interfaces such as C<epoll> and
2544C<kqueue>, and is the fastest backend I<by far>. You can even embed
2545L<Glib>/L<Gtk2> in it (or vice versa, see L<EV::Glib> and L<Glib::EV>).
2546
2547If you only use backends that rely on another event loop (e.g. C<Tk>),
2548then this module will do nothing for you.
2549
2550=item L<Guard>
2551
2552The guard module, when used, will be used to implement
2553C<AnyEvent::Util::guard>. This speeds up guards considerably (and uses a
2554lot less memory), but otherwise doesn't affect guard operation much. It is
2555purely used for performance.
2556
2557=item L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS>
2558
2559One of these modules is required when you want to read or write JSON data
2560via L<AnyEvent::Handle>. L<JSON> is also written in pure-perl, but can take
2561advantage of the ultra-high-speed L<JSON::XS> module when it is installed.
2562
2563=item L<Net::SSLeay>
2564
2565Implementing TLS/SSL in Perl is certainly interesting, but not very
2566worthwhile: If this module is installed, then L<AnyEvent::Handle> (with
2567the help of L<AnyEvent::TLS>), gains the ability to do TLS/SSL.
2568
2569=item L<Time::HiRes>
2570
2571This module is part of perl since release 5.008. It will be used when the
2572chosen event library does not come with a timing source on it's own. The
2573pure-perl event loop (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) will additionally use it to
2574try to use a monotonic clock for timing stability.
2575
2576=back
2577
2578
2579=head1 FORK
2580
2581Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
2582because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll> calls
2583- higher performance APIs such as BSD's kqueue or the dreaded Linux epoll
2584are usually badly thought-out hacks that are incompatible with fork in
2585one way or another. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware and ensures that you
2586continue event-processing in both parent and child (or both, if you know
2587what you are doing).
2588
2589This means that, in general, you cannot fork and do event processing in
2590the child if the event library was initialised before the fork (which
2591usually happens when the first AnyEvent watcher is created, or the library
2592is loaded).
2593
2594If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
2595watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child OR you must do
2596something completely out of the scope of AnyEvent.
2597
2598The problem of doing event processing in the parent I<and> the child
2599is much more complicated: even for backends that I<are> fork-aware or
2600fork-safe, their behaviour is not usually what you want: fork clones all
2601watchers, that means all timers, I/O watchers etc. are active in both
2602parent and child, which is almost never what you want. USing C<exec>
2603to start worker children from some kind of manage rprocess is usually
2604preferred, because it is much easier and cleaner, at the expense of having
2605to have another binary.
2606
2607
2608=head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
2609
2610AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
2611$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
2612execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
2613make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
2614will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
2615specified in the variable.
2616
2617You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
2618before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
2619
2620 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
2621
2622 use AnyEvent;
2623
2624Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
2625be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
2626probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), and
2627$ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_STRICT}.
2628
2629Note that AnyEvent will remove I<all> environment variables starting with
2630C<PERL_ANYEVENT_> from C<%ENV> when it is loaded while taint mode is
2631enabled.
2632
2633
2634=head1 BUGS
2635
2636Perl 5.8 has numerous memleaks that sometimes hit this module and are hard
2637to work around. If you suffer from memleaks, first upgrade to Perl 5.10
2638and check wether the leaks still show up. (Perl 5.10.0 has other annoying
2639memleaks, such as leaking on C<map> and C<grep> but it is usually not as
2640pronounced).
2641
800 2642
801=head1 SEE ALSO 2643=head1 SEE ALSO
802 2644
803Event modules: L<Coro::EV>, L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, 2645Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
804L<Coro::Event>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>, L<Glib>, L<Coro>, L<Tk>.
805 2646
806Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, 2647Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
2648L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
2649
807L<AnyEvent::Impl::CoroEvent>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>, 2650Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
808L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. 2651L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
2652L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
2653L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::IOAsync>, L<Anyevent::Impl::Irssi>.
809 2654
2655Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
2656servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>, L<AnyEvent::TLS>.
2657
2658Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
2659
2660Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>,
2661L<Coro::Event>,
2662
810Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>. 2663Nontrivial usage examples: L<AnyEvent::GPSD>, L<AnyEvent::XMPP>,
2664L<AnyEvent::HTTP>.
811 2665
812=head1 2666
2667=head1 AUTHOR
2668
2669 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
2670 http://home.schmorp.de/
813 2671
814=cut 2672=cut
815 2673
8161 26741
817 2675

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