NAME

Coro::Util - various utility functions.

SYNOPSIS

use Coro::Util;

DESCRIPTION

This module implements various utility functions, mostly replacing perl functions by non-blocking counterparts.

This module is an AnyEvent user. Refer to the AnyEvent documentation to see how to integrate it into your own programs.

gethostbyname, gethostbyaddr

Work exactly like their perl counterparts, but do not block. Currently this is being implemented with forking, so it's not exactly low-cost.

Coro::Util::inet_aton

Works almost exactly like its Socket counterpart, except that it does not block. Is implemented with forking, so not exactly low-cost.

@result = Coro::Util::fork_eval { ... }, @args

Executes the given code block or code reference with the given arguments in a separate process, returning the results. The return values must be serialisable with Coro::Storable. It may, of course, block.

Note that using event handling in the sub is not usually a good idea as you will inherit a mixed set of watchers from the parent.

Exceptions will be correctly forwarded to the caller.

This function is useful for pushing cpu-intensive computations into a different process, for example to take advantage of multiple CPU's. Its also useful if you want to simply run some blocking functions (such as system()) and do not care about the overhead enough to code your own pid watcher etc.

This function might keep a pool of processes in some future version, as fork can be rather slow in large processes.

Example: execute some external program (convert image to rgba raw form) and add a long computation (extract the alpha channel) in a separate process, making sure that never more then $NUMCPUS processes are being run.

my $cpulock = new Coro::Semaphore $NUMCPUS;

sub do_it {
   my ($path) = @_;

   my $guard = $cpulock->guard;

   Coro::Util::fork_eval {
      open my $fh, "convert -depth 8 \Q$path\E rgba:"
         or die "$path: $!";

      local $/;
      # make my eyes hurt
      pack "C*", unpack "(xxxC)*", <$fh>
   }
}

my $alphachannel = do_it "/tmp/img.png";

AUTHOR

Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
http://home.schmorp.de/