NAME
Proc::Swarm - intelligently handle massive multi-processing on one
machine
VERSION
This document describes version 0.5 of Proc::Swarm, released October 30,
2001
SYNOPSIS
use Proc::Swarm;
my $code = sub {
my $arg = shift;
sleep($arg);
$arg++;
return($arg);
};
my $retvals = Proc::Swarm::swarm(
{ 'code' => $code, #code to run
#How many child processes to run parallel
'children' => 2,
'sort' => 1, #sort the results
'work' => [1,5,7,10]}); #List of objects to work on
my @results = $retvals->get_result_objects;
#@results contain 2, 6, 8 and 11, in numeric order.
my @run_times = $retvals->get_result_times;
#how long each took to run. Should contain something like 1,5,7 and 10
my @objects = $retvals->get_objects;
#The objects passed in. Should contain 1,5,7 and 10
my $specific_result = $retvals->get_result(10);
#Get specific result as keyed by passed object: 11 in this case.
my $specific_return_value = $retvals->get_result(5)->get_runtime;
#Returns how long it took to run object 5.
DESCRIPTION
This module provides some fairly fine control over heavy-duty
multiprocessing work. This is probably most useful in two general cases:
a multi-CPU system that doesn't distribute load in a single process
across all CPUs, and programs that need to do a lot of slow, blocking
work quickly with many simultaneous processes. (For instance, SNMP,
SOAP, etc.) Swarm gathers the results of all of the child processes
together and returns that in a results object, along with information
about the status of each unit of work, how long it took to run each
unit, and related information.
TODO
Fix the below-cited limitation of sort functionality.
Add the ability to sort using an arbitrary code reference.
Add the ability to add and remove call objects runtime.
Eventually add the ability to control processes on many different
systems.
Make the timing of each run optionally calculated with HiRes.
AUTHOR
Dana M. Diederich <
[email protected]>
BUGS
The sort option sorts under the assumption that there is a one to one
cardinality between the submitted objects and the result objects. That
is, if a given input object is repeated, and the code that is ran
against it returns more than one different result, the sort system is
not guaranteed to work correctly.
Some of the test suites are rather slow. One of them is very CPU
intensive. While not a bug, this can be rather alarming.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2001, Dana M. Diederich. All Rights Reserved. This module
is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under
the terms of the Perl Artistic License (see
http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html)
