NAME
Atomic::Pipe - Send atomic messages from multiple writers across a
POSIX pipe.
DESCRIPTION
Normally if you write to a pipe from multiple processes/threads, the
messages will come mixed together unpredictably. Some messages may be
interrupted by parts of messages from other writers. This module takes
advantage of some POSIX specifications to allow multiple writers to
send arbitrary data down a pipe in atomic chunks to avoid the issue.
NOTE: This only works for POSIX compliant pipes on POSIX compliant
systems. Also some features may not be available on older systems, or
some platforms.
Also:
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/pipe.7.html
POSIX.1 says that write(2)s of less than PIPE_BUF bytes must be
atomic: the output data is written to the pipe as a contiguous
sequence. Writes of more than PIPE_BUF bytes may be nonatomic: the
kernel may interleave the data with data written by other processes.
POSIX.1 requires PIPE_BUF to be at least 512 bytes. (On Linux,
PIPE_BUF is 4096 bytes.) [...]
Under the hood this module will split your message into small sections
of slightly smaller than the PIPE_BUF limit. Each message will be sent
as 1 atomic chunk with a 4 byte prefix indicating what process id it
came from, what thread id it came from, a chunk ID (in descending
order, so if there are 3 chunks the first will have id 2, the second 1,
and the final chunk is always 0 allowing a flush as it knows it is
done) and then 1 byte with the length of the data section to follow.
On the receiving end this module will read chunks and re-assemble them
based on the header data. So the reader will always get complete
messages. Note that message order is not guarenteed when messages are
sent from multiple processes or threads. Though all messages from any
given thread/process should be in order.
SYNOPSIS
use Atomic::Pipe;
my ($r, $w) = Atomic::Pipe->pair;
# Chunks will be set to the number of atomic chunks the message was split
# into. It is fine to ignore the value returned, it will always be an
# integer 1 or larger.
my $chunks = $w->send_message("Hello");
# $msg now contains "Hello";
my $msg = $r->read_message;
# Note, you can set the reader to be non-blocking:
$r->blocking(0);
# $msg2 will be undef as no messages were sent, and blocking is turned off.
my $msg2 = $r->read_message;
Fork example from tests:
use Test2::V0;
use Test2::Require::RealFork;
use Test2::IPC;
use Atomic::Pipe;
my ($r, $w) = Atomic::Pipe->pair;
# For simplicty
$SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';
# Forks and runs your coderef, then exits.
sub worker(&) { ... }
worker { is($w->write_message("aa" x $w->PIPE_BUF), 3, "$$ Wrote 3 chunks") };
worker { is($w->write_message("bb" x $w->PIPE_BUF), 3, "$$ Wrote 3 chunks") };
worker { is($w->write_message("cc" x $w->PIPE_BUF), 3, "$$ Wrote 3 chunks") };
my @messages = ();
push @messages => $r->read_message for 1 .. 3;
is(
[sort @messages],
[sort(('aa' x PIPE_BUF), ('bb' x PIPE_BUF), ('cc' x PIPE_BUF))],
"Got all 3 long messages, not mangled or mixed, order not guarenteed"
);
done_testing;
METHODS
CLASS METHODS
$bytes = Atomic::Pipe->PIPE_BUF
Get the maximum number of bytes for an atomic write to a pipe.
($r, $w) = Atomic::Pipe->pair
Create a pipe, returns a list consisting of a reader and a writer.
$p = Atomic::Pipe->new
If you really must have a new() method it is here for you to abuse.
The returned pipe has both handles, it is your job to then turn it
into 2 clones one with the reader and one with the writer. It is also
your job to make you do not have too many handles floating around
preventing an EOF.
$r = Atomic::Pipe->read_fifo($FIFO_PATH)
$w = Atomic::Pipe->write_fifo($FIFO_PATH)
These 2 constructors let you connect to a FIFO by filesystem path.
The interface difference (read_fifo and write_fifo vs specifying a
mode) is because the modes to use for fifo's are not obvious ('+<'
for reading).
NOTE: THERE IS NO EOF for the read-end in the process that created
the fifo. You need to figure out when the last message is received on
your own somehow. If you use blocking reads in a loop with no loop
exit condition then the loop will never end even after all writers
are gone.
$p = Atomic::Pipe->from_fh($fh)
$p = Atomic::Pipe->from_fh($mode, $fh)
Create an instance around an existing filehandle (A clone of the
handle will be made and kept internally).
This will fail if the handle is not a pipe.
If no mode is provided this constructor will determine the mode
(reader or writer) for you from the given handle. Note: This works on
linux, but not BSD or Solaris, on most platforms your must provide a
mode.
Valid modes:
'>&'
Write-only.
'>&='
Write-only and reuse fileno.
'<&'
Read-only.
'<&='
Read-only and reuse fileno.
$p = Atomic::Pipe->from_fd($mode, $fd)
$fd must be a file descriptor number.
This will fail if the fd is not a pipe.
You must specify one of these modes (as a string):
'>&'
Write-only.
'>&='
Write-only and reuse fileno.
'<&'
Read-only.
'<&='
Read-only and reuse fileno.
OBJECT METHODS
PRIMARY INTERFACE
$p->write_message($msg)
Send a message in atomic chunks.
$msg = $p->read_message
Get the next message. This will block until a message is received
unless you set $p->blocking(0). If blocking is turned off, and no
message is ready, this will return undef. This will also return undef
when the pipe is closed (EOF).
$count = $self->parts_needed($data)
Get the number of parts the data will be split into for it to be
written in atomic chunks.
$p->blocking($bool)
$bool = $p->blocking
Get/Set blocking status.
$bool = $p->eof
True if EOF (all writers are closed).
$p->close
Close this end of the pipe (or both ends if this is not yet split
into reader/writer pairs).
$undef_or_bytes = $p->fits_in_burst($data)
This will return undef if the data DES NOT fit in a burst. This will
return the size of the data in bytes if it will fit in a burst.
$undef_or_bytes = $p->write_burst($data)
Attempt to write $data in a single atomic burst. If the data is too
big to write atomically this method will not write any data and will
return undef. If the data does fit in an atomic write then the data
will be written and the total number of bytes written will be
returned.
Note: YOU MUST NOT USE read_message() when writing bursts. This
method sends the data as-is with no data-header or modification. This
method should be used when the other side is reading the pipe
directly without an Atomic::Pipe on the receiving end.
The primary use case of this is if you have multiple writers sending
short plain-text messages that will not exceed the atomic pipe buffer
limit (minimum of 512 bytes on systems that support atomic pipes
accoring to POSIX).
RESIZING THE PIPE BUFFER
On some newer linux systems it is possible to get/set the pipe size. On
supported systems these allow you to do that, on other systems they are
no-ops, and any that return a value will return undef.
Note: This has nothing to do with the similarly named PIPE_BUF which
cannot be changed. This simply effects how much data can sit in a pipe
before the writers block, it does not effect the max size of atomic
writes.
$bytes = $p->size
Current size of the pipe buffer.
$bytes = $p->max_size
Maximum size, or undef if that cannot be determined. (Linux only for
now).
$p->resize($bytes)
Attempt to set the pipe size in bytes. It may not work, so check
$p->size.
$p->resize_or_max($bytes)
Attempt to set the pipe to the specified size, but if the size is
larger than the maximum fall back to the maximum size instead.
SPLITTING THE PIPE INTO READER AND WRITER
If you used Atomic::Pipe->new() you need to now split the one object
into readers and writers. These help you do that.
$bool = $p->is_reader
This returns true if this instance is ONLY a reader.
$p->is_writer
This returns true if this instance is ONLY a writer.
$p->clone_reader
This copies the object into a reader-only copy.
$p->clone_writer
This copies the object into a writer-only copy.
$p->reader
This turnes the object into a reader-only. Note that if you have no
writer-copies then effectively makes it impossible to write to the
pipe as you cannot get a writer anymore.
$p->writer
This turnes the object into a writer-only. Note that if you have no
reader-copies then effectively makes it impossible to read from the
pipe as you cannot get a reader anymore.
SOURCE
The source code repository for Atomic-Pipe can be found at
http://github.com/exodist/Atomic-Pipe.
MAINTAINERS
Chad Granum <
[email protected]>
AUTHORS
Chad Granum <
[email protected]>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2020 Chad Granum <
[email protected]>.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
See
http://dev.perl.org/licenses/