Coro - the only real threads in perl
use Coro;
async {
# some asynchronous thread of execution
print "2\n";
cede; # yield back to main
print "4\n";
};
print "1\n";
cede; # yield to coro
print "3\n";
cede; # and again
# use locking
use Coro::Semaphore;
my $lock = new Coro::Semaphore;
my $locked;
$lock->down;
$locked = 1;
$lock->up;
For a tutorial-style introduction, please read the Coro::Intro manpage. This manpage mainly contains reference information.
This module collection manages continuations in general, most often in the form of cooperative threads (also called coros, or simply "coro" in the documentation). They are similar to kernel threads but don't (in general) run in parallel at the same time even on SMP machines. The specific flavor of thread offered by this module also guarantees you that it will not switch between threads unless necessary, at easily-identified points in your program, so locking and parallel access are rarely an issue, making thread programming much safer and easier than using other thread models.
Unlike the so-called "Perl threads" (which are not actually real threads but only the windows process emulation ported to unix, and as such act as processes), Coro provides a full shared address space, which makes communication between threads very easy. And Coro's threads are fast, too: disabling the Windows process emulation code in your perl and using Coro can easily result in a two to four times speed increase for your programs. A parallel matrix multiplication benchmark runs over 300 times faster on a single core than perl's pseudo-threads on a quad core using all four cores.
Coro achieves that by supporting multiple running interpreters that share data, which is especially useful to code pseudo-parallel processes and for event-based programming, such as multiple HTTP-GET requests running concurrently. See Coro::AnyEvent to learn more on how to integrate Coro into an event-based environment.
In this module, a thread is defined as "callchain + lexical variables + some package variables + C stack), that is, a thread has its own callchain, its own set of lexicals and its own set of perls most important global variables (see Coro::State for more configuration and background info).
See also the SEE ALSO section at the end of this document - the Coro
module family is quite large.
This variable stores the Coro object that represents the main
program. While you cna ready it and do most other things you can do to
coro, it is mainly useful to compare again $Coro::current, to see
whether you are running in the main program or not.
The Coro object representing the current coro (the last
coro that the Coro scheduler switched to). The initial value is
$Coro::main (of course).
This variable is strictly read-only. You can take copies of the value stored in it and use it as any other Coro object, but you must not otherwise modify the variable itself.
This variable is mainly useful to integrate Coro into event loops. It is usually better to rely on Coro::AnyEvent or Coro::EV, as this is pretty low-level functionality.
This variable stores either a Coro object or a callback.
If it is a callback, the it is called whenever the scheduler finds no ready coros to run. The default implementation prints "FATAL: deadlock detected" and exits, because the program has no other way to continue.
If it is a coro object, then this object will be readied (without invoking any ready hooks, however) when the scheduler finds no other ready coros to run.
This hook is overwritten by modules such as Coro::EV and
Coro::AnyEvent to wait on an external event that hopefully wake up a
coro so the scheduler can run it.
Note that the callback must not, under any circumstances, block the current coro. Normally, this is achieved by having an "idle coro" that calls the event loop and then blocks again, and then readying that coro in the idle handler, or by simply placing the idle coro in this variable.
See Coro::Event or Coro::AnyEvent for examples of using this technique.
Please note that if your callback recursively invokes perl (e.g. for event handlers), then it must be prepared to be called recursively itself.
Create a new coro and return its Coro object (usually unused). The coro will be put into the ready queue, so it will start running automatically on the next scheduler run.
The first argument is a codeblock/closure that should be executed in the coro. When it returns argument returns the coro is automatically terminated.
The remaining arguments are passed as arguments to the closure.
See the Coro::State::new constructor for info about the coro
environment in which coro are executed.
Calling exit in a coro will do the same as calling exit outside
the coro. Likewise, when the coro dies, the program will exit,
just as it would in the main program.
If you do not want that, you can provide a default die handler, or
simply avoid dieing (by use of eval).
Example: Create a new coro that just prints its arguments.
async {
print "@_\n";
} 1,2,3,4;
Similar to async, but uses a coro pool, so you should not call
terminate or join on it (although you are allowed to), and you get a
coro that might have executed other code already (which can be good
or bad :).
On the plus side, this function is about twice as fast as creating (and
destroying) a completely new coro, so if you need a lot of generic
coros in quick successsion, use async_pool, not async.
The code block is executed in an eval context and a warning will be
issued in case of an exception instead of terminating the program, as
async does. As the coro is being reused, stuff like on_destroy
will not work in the expected way, unless you call terminate or cancel,
which somehow defeats the purpose of pooling (but is fine in the
exceptional case).
The priority will be reset to 0 after each run, tracing will be
disabled, the description will be reset and the default output filehandle
gets restored, so you can change all these. Otherwise the coro will
be re-used "as-is": most notably if you change other per-coro global
stuff such as $/ you must needs revert that change, which is most
simply done by using local as in: local $/.
The idle pool size is limited to 8 idle coros (this can be
adjusted by changing $Coro::POOL_SIZE), but there can be as many non-idle
coros as required.
If you are concerned about pooled coros growing a lot because a
single async_pool used a lot of stackspace you can e.g. async_pool
{ terminate } once per second or so to slowly replenish the pool. In
addition to that, when the stacks used by a handler grows larger than 32kb
(adjustable via $Coro::POOL_RSS) it will also be destroyed.
Static methods are actually functions that implicitly operate on the current coro.
Calls the scheduler. The scheduler will find the next coro that is
to be run from the ready queue and switches to it. The next coro
to be run is simply the one with the highest priority that is longest
in its ready queue. If there is no coro ready, it will clal the
$Coro::idle hook.
Please note that the current coro will not be put into the ready
queue, so calling this function usually means you will never be called
again unless something else (e.g. an event handler) calls ->ready,
thus waking you up.
This makes schedule the generic method to use to block the current
coro and wait for events: first you remember the current coro in
a variable, then arrange for some callback of yours to call ->ready on that once some event happens, and last you call schedule to put
yourself to sleep. Note that a lot of things can wake your coro up,
so you need to check whether the event indeed happened, e.g. by storing the
status in a variable.
See HOW TO WAIT FOR A CALLBACK, below, for some ways to wait for callbacks.
"Cede" to other coros. This function puts the current coro into
the ready queue and calls schedule, which has the effect of giving
up the current "timeslice" to other coros of the same or higher
priority. Once your coro gets its turn again it will automatically be
resumed.
This function is often called yield in other languages.
These function install enter and leave winders in the current scope. The enter block will be executed when on_enter is called and whenever the current coro is re-entered by the scheduler, while the leave block is executed whenever the current coro is blocked by the scheduler, and also when the containing scope is exited (by whatever means, be it exit, die, last etc.).
Neither invoking the scheduler, nor exceptions, are allowed within those
BLOCKs. That means: do not even think about calling die without an
eval, and do not even think of entering the scheduler in any way.
Since both BLOCKs are tied to the current scope, they will automatically be removed when the current scope exits.
These functions implement the same concept as dynamic-wind in scheme
does, and are useful when you want to localise some resource to a specific
coro.
They slow down coro switching considerably for coros that use them (But coro switching is still reasonably fast if the handlers are fast).
These functions are best understood by an example: The following function
will change the current timezone to "Antarctica/South_Pole", which
requires a call to tzset, but by using on_enter and on_leave,
which remember/change the current timezone and restore the previous
value, respectively, the timezone is only changes for the coro that
installed those handlers.
use POSIX qw(tzset);
async {
my $old_tz; # store outside TZ value here
Coro::on_enter {
$old_tz = $ENV{TZ}; # remember the old value
$ENV{TZ} = "Antarctica/South_Pole";
tzset; # enable new value
};
Coro::on_leave {
$ENV{TZ} = $old_tz;
tzset; # restore old value
};
# at this place, the timezone is Antarctica/South_Pole,
# without disturbing the TZ of any other coro.
};
This can be used to localise about any resource (locale, uid, current working directory etc.) to a block, despite the existance of other coros.
Kills/terminates/cancels all coros except the currently running one.
Note that while this will try to free some of the main interpreter resources if the calling coro isn't the main coro, but one cannot free all of them, so if a coro that is not the main coro calls this function, there will be some one-time resource leak.
These are the methods you can call on coro objects (or to create them).
Create a new coro and return it. When the sub returns, the coro
automatically terminates as if terminate with the returned values were
called. To make the coro run you must first put it into the ready
queue by calling the ready method.
See async and Coro::State::new for additional info about the
coro environment.
Put the given coro into the end of its ready queue (there is one queue for each priority) and return true. If the coro is already in the ready queue, do nothing and return false.
This ensures that the scheduler will resume this coro automatically once all the coro of higher priority and all coro of the same priority that were put into the ready queue earlier have been resumed.
Suspends the specified coro. A suspended coro works just like any other coro, except that the scheduler will not select a suspended coro for execution.
Suspending a coro can be useful when you want to keep the coro from running, but you don't want to destroy it, or when you want to temporarily freeze a coro (e.g. for debugging) to resume it later.
A scenario for the former would be to suspend all (other) coros after a fork and keep them alive, so their destructors aren't called, but new coros can be created.
If the specified coro was suspended, it will be resumed. Note that when the coro was in the ready queue when it was suspended, it might have been unreadied by the scheduler, so an activation might have been lost.
To avoid this, it is best to put a suspended coro into the ready queue unconditionally, as every synchronisation mechanism must protect itself against spurious wakeups, and the one in the Coro family certainly do that.
Terminates the given Coro and makes it return the given arguments as status (default: the empty list). Never returns if the Coro is the current Coro.
Puts the current coro to sleep (like Coro::schedule), but instead
of continuing with the next coro from the ready queue, always switch to
the given coro object (regardless of priority etc.). The readyness
state of that coro isn't changed.
This is an advanced method for special cases - I'd love to hear about any uses for this one.
Like schedule_to, but puts the current coro into the ready
queue. This has the effect of temporarily switching to the given
coro, and continuing some time later.
This is an advanced method for special cases - I'd love to hear about any uses for this one.
If $throw is specified and defined, it will be thrown as an exception
inside the coro at the next convenient point in time. Otherwise
clears the exception object.
Coro will check for the exception each time a schedule-like-function
returns, i.e. after each schedule, cede, Coro::Semaphore->down, Coro::Handle->readable and so on. Most of these functions
detect this case and return early in case an exception is pending.
The exception object will be thrown "as is" with the specified scalar in
$@, i.e. if it is a string, no line number or newline will be appended
(unlike with die).
This can be used as a softer means than cancel to ask a coro to
end itself, although there is no guarantee that the exception will lead to
termination, and if the exception isn't caught it might well end the whole
program.
You might also think of throw as being the moral equivalent of
killing a coro with a signal (in this case, a scalar).
Wait until the coro terminates and return any values given to the
terminate or cancel functions. join can be called concurrently
from multiple coro, and all will be resumed and given the status
return once the $coro terminates.
Registers a callback that is called when this coro gets destroyed, but before it is joined. The callback gets passed the terminate arguments, if any, and must not die, under any circumstances.
Sets (or gets, if the argument is missing) the priority of the coro. Higher priority coro get run before lower priority coro. Priorities are small signed integers (currently -4 .. +3), that you can refer to using PRIO_xxx constants (use the import tag :prio to get then):
PRIO_MAX > PRIO_HIGH > PRIO_NORMAL > PRIO_LOW > PRIO_IDLE > PRIO_MIN
3 > 1 > 0 > -1 > -3 > -4
# set priority to HIGH
current->prio (PRIO_HIGH);
The idle coro ($Coro::idle) always has a lower priority than any existing coro.
Changing the priority of the current coro will take effect immediately, but changing the priority of coro in the ready queue (but not running) will only take effect after the next schedule (of that coro). This is a bug that will be fixed in some future version.
prio, but subtract the given value from the priority (i.e.
higher values mean lower priority, just as in unix).
Sets (or gets in case the argument is missing) the description for this coro. This is just a free-form string you can associate with a coro.
This method simply sets the $coro->{desc} member to the given
string. You can modify this member directly if you wish.
schedule directory or
indirectly. The value 0 means that the only runnable coro is the
currently running one, so cede would have no effect, and schedule
would cause a deadlock unless there is an idle handler that wakes up some
coro.
This function still exists, but is deprecated. Please use the
Guard::guard function instead.
This utility function takes a BLOCK or code reference and "unblocks" it, returning a new coderef. Unblocking means that calling the new coderef will return immediately without blocking, returning nothing, while the original code ref will be called (with parameters) from within another coro.
The reason this function exists is that many event libraries (such as the
venerable Event module) are not thread-safe (a weaker form
of reentrancy). This means you must not block within event callbacks,
otherwise you might suffer from crashes or worse. The only event library
currently known that is safe to use without unblock_sub is EV.
This function allows your callbacks to block by executing them in another coro where it is safe to block. One example where blocking is handy is when you use the Coro::AIO functions to save results to disk, for example.
In short: simply use unblock_sub { ... } instead of sub { ... } when
creating event callbacks that want to block.
If your handler does not plan to block (e.g. simply sends a message to
another coro, or puts some other coro into the ready queue), there is
no reason to use unblock_sub.
Note that you also need to use unblock_sub for any other callbacks that
are indirectly executed by any C-based event loop. For example, when you
use a module that uses AnyEvent (and you use Coro::AnyEvent) and it
provides callbacks that are the result of some event callback, then you
must not block either, or use unblock_sub.
Create and return a "rouse callback". That's a code reference that, when called, will remember a copy of its arguments and notify the owner coro of the callback.
See the next function.
Wait for the specified rouse callback (or the last one that was created in this coro).
As soon as the callback is invoked (or when the callback was invoked
before rouse_wait), it will return the arguments originally passed to
the rouse callback.
See the section HOW TO WAIT FOR A CALLBACK for an actual usage example.
It is very common for a coro to wait for some callback to be called. This occurs naturally when you use coro in an otherwise event-based program, or when you use event-based libraries.
These typically register a callback for some event, and call that callback when the event occured. In a coro, however, you typically want to just wait for the event, simplyifying things.
For example AnyEvent->child registers a callback to be called when
a specific child has exited:
my $child_watcher = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub { ... });
But from within a coro, you often just want to write this:
my $status = wait_for_child $pid;
Coro offers two functions specifically designed to make this easy,
Coro::rouse_cb and Coro::rouse_wait.
The first function, rouse_cb, generates and returns a callback that,
when invoked, will save its arguments and notify the coro that
created the callback.
The second function, rouse_wait, waits for the callback to be called
(by calling schedule to go to sleep) and returns the arguments
originally passed to the callback.
Using these functions, it becomes easy to write the wait_for_child
function mentioned above:
sub wait_for_child($) {
my ($pid) = @_;
my $watcher = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => Coro::rouse_cb);
my ($rpid, $rstatus) = Coro::rouse_wait;
$rstatus
}
In the case where rouse_cb and rouse_wait are not flexible enough,
you can roll your own, using schedule:
sub wait_for_child($) {
my ($pid) = @_;
# store the current coro in $current,
# and provide result variables for the closure passed to ->child
my $current = $Coro::current;
my ($done, $rstatus);
# pass a closure to ->child
my $watcher = AnyEvent->child (pid => $pid, cb => sub {
$rstatus = $_[1]; # remember rstatus
$done = 1; # mark $rstatus as valud
});
# wait until the closure has been called
schedule while !$done;
$rstatus
}
You must not switch to another coro from within a signal handler (only relevant with %SIG - most event libraries provide safe signals).
That means you MUST NOT call any function that might "block" the
current coro - cede, schedule Coro::Semaphore->down or
anything that calls those. Everything else, including calling ready,
works.
Event-Loop integration: Coro::AnyEvent, Coro::EV, Coro::Event.
Debugging: Coro::Debug.
Support/Utility: Coro::Specific, Coro::Util.
Locking and IPC: Coro::Signal, Coro::Channel, Coro::Semaphore, Coro::SemaphoreSet, Coro::RWLock.
I/O and Timers: Coro::Timer, Coro::Handle, Coro::Socket, Coro::AIO.
Compatibility with other modules: Coro::LWP (but see also AnyEvent::HTTP for a better-working alternative), Coro::BDB, Coro::Storable, Coro::Select.
XS API: Coro::MakeMaker.
Low level Configuration, Thread Environment, Continuations: Coro::State.
Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de> http://home.schmorp.de/