IO::Async::Stream(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation IO::Async::Stream(3)NAME
"IO::Async::Stream" - event callbacks and write bufering for a stream
filehandle
SYNOPSIS
use IO::Async::Stream;
use IO::Async::Loop;
my $loop = IO::Async::Loop->new;
my $stream = IO::Async::Stream->new(
read_handle => \*STDIN,
write_handle => \*STDOUT,
on_read => sub {
my ( $self, $buffref, $eof ) = @_;
while( $$buffref =~ s/^(.*\n)// ) {
print "Received a line $1";
}
if( $eof ) {
print "EOF; last partial line is $$buffref\n";
}
return 0;
}
);
$loop->add( $stream );
$stream->write( "An initial line here\n" );
DESCRIPTION
This subclass of IO::Async::Handle contains a filehandle that
represents a byte-stream. It provides buffering for both incoming and
outgoing data. It invokes the "on_read" handler when new data is read
from the filehandle. Data may be written to the filehandle by calling
the "write" method.
For implementing real network protocols that are based on messages sent
over a byte-stream (such as a TCP socket), it may be more appropriate
to use a subclass of IO::Async::Protocol::Stream.
EVENTS
The following events are invoked, either using subclass methods or CODE
references in parameters:
$ret = on_read \$buffer, $eof
Invoked when more data is available in the internal receiving buffer.
The first argument is a reference to a plain perl string. The code
should inspect and remove any data it likes, but is not required to
remove all, or indeed any of the data. Any data remaining in the buffer
will be preserved for the next call, the next time more data is
received from the handle.
In this way, it is easy to implement code that reads records of some
form when completed, but ignores partially-received records, until all
the data is present. If the handler is confident no more useful data
remains, it should return 0. If not, it should return 1, and the
handler will be called again. This makes it easy to implement code that
handles multiple incoming records at the same time. See the examples at
the end of this documentation for more detail.
The second argument is a scalar indicating whether the stream has
reported an end-of-file (EOF) condition. A reference to the buffer is
passed to the handler in the usual way, so it may inspect data
contained in it. Once the handler returns a false value, it will not be
called again, as the handle is now at EOF and no more data can arrive.
The "on_read" code may also dynamically replace itself with a new
callback by returning a CODE reference instead of 0 or 1. The original
callback or method that the object first started with may be restored
by returning "undef". Whenever the callback is changed in this way, the
new code is called again; even if the read buffer is currently empty.
See the examples at the end of this documentation for more detail.
The "push_on_read" method can be used to insert new, temporary handlers
that take precedence over the global "on_read" handler. This event is
only used if there are no further pending handlers created by
"push_on_read".
on_read_eof
Optional. Invoked when the read handle indicates an end-of-file (EOF)
condition. If there is any data in the buffer still to be processed,
the "on_read" event will be invoked first, before this one.
on_write_eof
Optional. Invoked when the write handle indicates an end-of-file (EOF)
condition. Note that this condition can only be detected after a
"write" syscall returns the "EPIPE" error. If there is no data pending
to be written then it will not be detected yet.
on_read_error $errno
Optional. Invoked when the "sysread" method on the read handle fails.
on_write_error $errno
Optional. Invoked when the "syswrite" method on the write handle fails.
The "on_read_error" and "on_write_error" handlers are passed the value
of $! at the time the error occured. (The $! variable itself, by its
nature, may have changed from the original error by the time this
handler runs so it should always use the value passed in).
If an error occurs when the corresponding error callback is not
supplied, and there is not a handler for it, then the "close" method is
called instead.
on_read_high_watermark $length
on_read_low_watermark $length
Optional. Invoked when the read buffer grows larger than the high
watermark or smaller than the low watermark respectively. These are
edge-triggered events; they will only be triggered once per crossing,
not continuously while the buffer remains above or below the given
limit.
If these event handlers are not defined, the default behaviour is to
disable read-ready notifications if the read buffer grows larger than
the high watermark (so as to avoid it growing arbitrarily if nothing is
consuming it), and re-enable notifications again once something has
read enough to cause it to drop. If these events are overridden, the
overriding code will have to perform this behaviour if required, by
using
$self->want_readready_for_read(...)
on_outgoing_empty
Optional. Invoked when the writing data buffer becomes empty.
on_writeable_start
on_writeable_stop
Optional. These two events inform when the filehandle becomes
writeable, and when it stops being writeable. "on_writeable_start" is
invoked by the "on_write_ready" event if previously it was known to be
not writeable. "on_writeable_stop" is invoked after a "syswrite"
operation fails with "EAGAIN" or "EWOULDBLOCK". These two events track
the writeability state, and ensure that only state change cause events
to be invoked. A stream starts off being presumed writeable, so the
first of these events to be observed will be "on_writeable_stop".
PARAMETERS
The following named parameters may be passed to "new" or "configure":
read_handle => IO
The IO handle to read from. Must implement "fileno" and
"sysread" methods.
write_handle => IO
The IO handle to write to. Must implement "fileno" and
"syswrite" methods.
handle => IO
Shortcut to specifying the same IO handle for both of the
above.
on_read => CODE
on_read_error => CODE
on_outgoing_empty => CODE
on_write_error => CODE
on_writeable_start => CODE
on_writeable_stop => CODE
CODE references for event handlers.
autoflush => BOOL
Optional. If true, the "write" method will attempt to write
data to the operating system immediately, without waiting for
the loop to indicate the filehandle is write-ready. This is
useful, for example, on streams that should contain up-to-date
logging or console information.
It currently defaults to false for any file handle, but future
versions of "IO::Async" may enable this by default on STDOUT
and STDERR.
read_len => INT
Optional. Sets the buffer size for "read" calls. Defaults to 8
KiBytes.
read_all => BOOL
Optional. If true, attempt to read as much data from the kernel
as possible when the handle becomes readable. By default this
is turned off, meaning at most one fixed-size buffer is read.
If there is still more data in the kernel's buffer, the handle
will still be readable, and will be read from again.
This behaviour allows multiple streams and sockets to be
multiplexed simultaneously, meaning that a large bulk transfer
on one cannot starve other filehandles of processing time.
Turning this option on may improve bulk data transfer rate, at
the risk of delaying or stalling processing on other
filehandles.
write_len => INT
Optional. Sets the buffer size for "write" calls. Defaults to 8
KiBytes.
write_all => BOOL
Optional. Analogous to the "read_all" option, but for writing.
When "autoflush" is enabled, this option only affects deferred
writing if the initial attempt failed due to buffer space.
read_high_watermark => INT
read_low_watermark => INT
Optional. If defined, gives a way to implement flow control or
other behaviours that depend on the size of Stream's read
buffer.
If after more data is read from the underlying filehandle the
read buffer is now larger than the high watermark, the
"on_read_high_watermark" event is triggered (which, by default,
will disable read-ready notifications and pause reading from
the filehandle).
If after data is consumed by an "on_read" handler the read
buffer is now smaller than the low watermark, the
"on_read_low_watermark" event is triggered (which, by default,
will re-enable read-ready notifications and resume reading from
the filehandle). For to be possible, the read handler would
have to be one added by the "push_on_read" method or one of the
Future-returning "read_*" methods.
By default these options are not defined, so this behaviour
will not happen. "read_low_watermark" may not be set to a
larger value than "read_high_watermark", but it may be set to a
smaller value, creating a hysteresis region. If either option
is defined then both must be.
If these options are used with the default event handlers, be
careful not to cause deadlocks by having a high watermark
sufficiently low that a single "on_read" invocation might not
consider it finished yet.
reader => STRING|CODE
writer => STRING|CODE
Optional. If defined, gives the name of a method or a CODE
reference to use to implement the actual reading from or
writing to the filehandle. These will be invoked as
$stream->reader( $read_handle, $buffer, $len )
$stream->writer( $write_handle, $buffer, $len )
Each is expected to modify the passed buffer; "reader" by
appending to it, "writer" by removing a prefix from it. Each is
expected to return a true value on success, zero on EOF, or
"undef" with $! set for errors. If not provided, they will be
substituted by implenentations using "sysread" and "syswrite"
on the underlying handle, respectively.
close_on_read_eof => BOOL
Optional. Usually true, but if set to a false value then the
stream will not be "close"d when an EOF condition occurs on
read. This is normally not useful as at that point the
underlying stream filehandle is no longer useable, but it may
be useful for reading regular files, or interacting with TTY
devices.
encoding => STRING
If supplied, sets the name of encoding of the underlying
stream. If an encoding is set, then the "write" method will
expect to receive Unicode strings and encodes them into bytes,
and incoming bytes will be decoded into Unicode strings for the
"on_read" event.
If an encoding is not supplied then "write" and "on_read" will
work in byte strings.
IMPORTANT NOTE: in order to handle reads of UTF-8 content or
other multibyte encodings, the code implementing the "on_read"
event uses a feature of Encode; the "STOP_AT_PARTIAL" flag.
While this flag has existed for a while and is used by the
":encoding" PerlIO layer itself for similar purposes, the flag
is not officially documented by the "Encode" module. In
principle this undocumented feature could be subject to change,
in practice I believe it to be reasonably stable.
This note applies only to the "on_read" event; data written
using the "write" method does not rely on any undocumented
features of "Encode".
If a read handle is given, it is required that either an "on_read"
callback reference is configured, or that the object provides an
"on_read" method. It is optional whether either is true for
"on_outgoing_empty"; if neither is supplied then no action will be
taken when the writing buffer becomes empty.
An "on_read" handler may be supplied even if no read handle is yet
given, to be used when a read handle is eventually provided by the
"set_handles" method.
This condition is checked at the time the object is added to a Loop; it
is allowed to create a "IO::Async::Stream" object with a read handle
but without a "on_read" handler, provided that one is later given using
"configure" before the stream is added to its containing Loop, either
directly or by being a child of another Notifier already in a Loop, or
added to one.
METHODS
$stream->want_readready_for_read( $set )
$stream->want_readready_for_write( $set )
Mutators for the "want_readready" property on IO::Async::Handle, which
control whether the "read" or "write" behaviour should be continued
once the filehandle becomes ready for read.
Normally, "want_readready_for_read" is always true (though the read
watermark behaviour can modify it), and "want_readready_for_write" is
not used. However, if a custom "writer" function is provided, it may
find this useful for being invoked again if it cannot proceed with a
write operation until the filehandle becomes readable (such as during
transport negotiation or SSL key management, for example).
$stream->want_writeready_for_write( $set )
$stream->want_writeready_for_read( $set )
Mutators for the "want_writeready" property on IO::Async::Handle, which
control whether the "write" or "read" behaviour should be continued
once the filehandle becomes ready for write.
Normally, "want_writeready_for_write" is managed by the "write" method
and associated flushing, and "want_writeready_for_read" is not used.
However, if a custom "reader" function is provided, it may find this
useful for being invoked again if it cannot proceed with a read
operation until the filehandle becomes writable (such as during
transport negotiation or SSL key management, for example).
$stream->close
A synonym for "close_when_empty". This should not be used when the
deferred wait behaviour is required, as the behaviour of "close" may
change in a future version of "IO::Async". Instead, call
"close_when_empty" directly.
$stream->close_when_empty
If the write buffer is empty, this method calls "close" on the
underlying IO handles, and removes the stream from its containing loop.
If the write buffer still contains data, then this is deferred until
the buffer is empty. This is intended for "write-then-close" one-shot
streams.
$stream->write( "Here is my final data\n" );
$stream->close_when_empty;
Because of this deferred nature, it may not be suitable for error
handling. See instead the "close_now" method.
$stream->close_now
This method immediately closes the underlying IO handles and removes
the stream from the containing loop. It will not wait to flush the
remaining data in the write buffer.
$eof = $stream->is_read_eof
$eof = $stream->is_write_eof
Returns true after an EOF condition is reported on either the read or
the write handle, respectively.
$stream->write( $data, %params )
This method adds data to the outgoing data queue, or writes it
immediately, according to the "autoflush" parameter.
If the "autoflush" option is set, this method will try immediately to
write the data to the underlying filehandle. If this completes
successfully then it will have been written by the time this method
returns. If it fails to write completely, then the data is queued as if
"autoflush" were not set, and will be flushed as normal.
$data can either be a plain string, a Future, or a CODE reference. If
it is a plain string it is written immediately. If it is not, its value
will be used to generate more $data values, eventually leading to
strings to be written.
If $data is a "Future", the Stream will wait until it is ready, and
take the single value it yields.
If $data is a CODE reference, it will be repeatedly invoked to generate
new values. Each time the filehandle is ready to write more data to it,
the function is invoked. Once the function has finished generating data
it should return undef. The function is passed the Stream object as its
first argument.
It is allowed that "Future"s yield CODE references, or CODE references
return "Future"s, as well as plain strings.
For example, to stream the contents of an existing opened filehandle:
open my $fileh, "<", $path or die "Cannot open $path - $!";
$stream->write( sub {
my ( $stream ) = @_;
sysread $fileh, my $buffer, 8192 or return;
return $buffer;
} );
Takes the following optional named parameters in %params:
write_len => INT
Overrides the "write_len" parameter for the data written by
this call.
on_write => CODE
A CODE reference which will be invoked after every successful
"syswrite" operation on the underlying filehandle. It will be
passed the number of bytes that were written by this call,
which may not be the entire length of the buffer - if it takes
more than one "syscall" operation to empty the buffer then this
callback will be invoked multiple times.
$on_write->( $stream, $len )
on_flush => CODE
A CODE reference which will be invoked once the data queued by
this "write" call has been flushed. This will be invoked even
if the buffer itself is not yet empty; if more data has been
queued since the call.
$on_flush->( $stream )
If the object is not yet a member of a loop and doesn't yet have a
"write_handle", then calls to the "write" method will simply queue the
data and return. It will be flushed when the object is added to the
loop.
If $data is a defined but empty string, the write is still queued, and
the "on_flush" continuation will be invoked, if supplied. This can be
used to obtain a marker, to invoke some code once the output queue has
been flushed up to this point.
$f = $stream->write( ... )
If called in non-void context, this method returns a Future which will
complete (with no value) when the write operation has been flushed.
This may be used as an alternative to, or combined with, the "on_flush"
callback.
$stream->push_on_read( $on_read )
Pushes a new temporary "on_read" handler to the end of the queue. This
queue, if non-empty, is used to provide "on_read" event handling code
in preference to using the object's main event handler or method. New
handlers can be supplied at any time, and they will be used in first-in
first-out (FIFO) order.
As with the main "on_read" event handler, each can return a (defined)
boolean to indicate if they wish to be invoked again or not, another
"CODE" reference to replace themself with, or "undef" to indicate it is
now complete and should be removed. When a temporary handler returns
"undef" it is shifted from the queue and the next one, if present, is
invoked instead. If there are no more then the object's main handler is
invoked instead.
FUTURE-RETURNING READ METHODS
The following methods all return a Future which will become ready when
enough data has been read by the Stream into its buffer. At this point,
the data is removed from the buffer and given to the "Future" object to
complete it.
my $f = $stream->read_...
my ( $string ) = $f->get;
Unlike the "on_read" event handlers, these methods don't allow for
access to "partial" results; they only provide the final result once it
is ready.
If a "Future" is cancelled before it completes it is removed from the
read queue without consuming any data; i.e. each "Future" atomically
either completes or is cancelled.
Since it is possible to use a readable "Stream" entirely using these
"Future"-returning methods instead of the "on_read" event, it may be
useful to configure a trivial return-false event handler to keep it
from consuming any input, and to allow it to be added to a "Loop" in
the first place.
my $stream = IO::Async::Stream->new( on_read => sub { 0 }, ... );
$loop->add( $stream );
my $f = $stream->read_...
If a read EOF or error condition happens while there are read "Future"s
pending, they are all completed. In the case of a read EOF, they are
done with "undef"; in the case of a read error they are failed using
the $! error value as the failure.
$f->fail( $message, sysread => $! )
If a read EOF condition happens to the currently-processing read
"Future", it will return a partial result. The calling code can detect
this by the fact that the returned data is not complete according to
the specification (too short in "read_exactly"'s case, or lacking the
ending pattern in "read_until"'s case). Additionally, each "Future"
will yield the $eof value in its results.
my ( $string, $eof ) = $f->get;
$f = $stream->read_atmost( $len )
$f = $stream->read_exactly( $len )
Completes the "Future" when the read buffer contains $len or more
characters of input. "read_atmost" will also complete after the first
invocation of "on_read", even if fewer characters are available,
whereas "read_exactly" will wait until at least $len are available.
$f = $stream->read_until( $end )
Completes the "Future" when the read buffer contains a match for $end,
which may either be a plain string or a compiled "Regexp" reference.
Yields the prefix of the buffer before and including this match.
$f = $stream->read_until_eof
Completes the "Future" when the stream is eventually closed at EOF, and
yields all of the data that was available.
UTILITY CONSTRUCTORS
$stream = IO::Async::Stream->new_for_stdin
$stream = IO::Async::Stream->new_for_stdout
$stream = IO::Async::Stream->new_for_stdio
Return a "IO::Async::Stream" object preconfigured with the correct
"read_handle", "write_handle" or both.
$future = $stream->connect( %args )
A convenient wrapper for calling the "connect" method on the underlying
IO::Async::Loop object, passing the "socktype" hint as "stream" if not
otherwise supplied.
EXAMPLES
A line-based "on_read" method
The following "on_read" method accepts incoming "\n"-terminated lines
and prints them to the program's "STDOUT" stream.
sub on_read
{
my $self = shift;
my ( $buffref, $eof ) = @_;
while( $$buffref =~ s/^(.*\n)// ) {
print "Received a line: $1";
}
return 0;
}
Because a reference to the buffer itself is passed, it is simple to use
a "s///" regular expression on the scalar it points at, to both check
if data is ready (i.e. a whole line), and to remove it from the buffer.
If no data is available then 0 is returned, to indicate it should not
be tried again. If a line was successfully extracted, then 1 is
returned, to indicate it should try again in case more lines exist in
the buffer.
For implementing real network protocols that are based on lines of text
it may be more appropriate to use a subclass of
IO::Async::Protocol::LineStream.
Reading binary data
This "on_read" method accepts incoming records in 16-byte chunks,
printing each one.
sub on_read
{
my ( $self, $buffref, $eof ) = @_;
if( length $$buffref >= 16 ) {
my $record = substr( $$buffref, 0, 16, "" );
print "Received a 16-byte record: $record\n";
return 1;
}
if( $eof and length $$buffref ) {
print "EOF: a partial record still exists\n";
}
return 0;
}
The 4-argument form of "substr()" extracts the 16-byte record from the
buffer and assigns it to the $record variable, if there was enough data
in the buffer to extract it.
A lot of protocols use a fixed-size header, followed by a variable-
sized body of data, whose size is given by one of the fields of the
header. The following "on_read" method extracts messages in such a
protocol.
sub on_read
{
my ( $self, $buffref, $eof ) = @_;
return 0 unless length $$buffref >= 8; # "N n n" consumes 8 bytes
my ( $len, $x, $y ) = unpack $$buffref, "N n n";
return 0 unless length $$buffref >= 8 + $len;
substr( $$buffref, 0, 8, "" );
my $data = substr( $$buffref, 0, $len, "" );
print "A record with values x=$x y=$y\n";
return 1;
}
In this example, the header is "unpack()"ed first, to extract the body
length, and then the body is extracted. If the buffer does not have
enough data yet for a complete message then 0 is returned, and the
buffer is left unmodified for next time. Only when there are enough
bytes in total does it use "substr()" to remove them.
Dynamic replacement of "on_read"
Consider the following protocol (inspired by IMAP), which consists of
"\n"-terminated lines that may have an optional data block attached.
The presence of such a data block, as well as its size, is indicated by
the line prefix.
sub on_read
{
my $self = shift;
my ( $buffref, $eof ) = @_;
if( $$buffref =~ s/^DATA (\d+):(.*)\n// ) {
my $length = $1;
my $line = $2;
return sub {
my $self = shift;
my ( $buffref, $eof ) = @_;
return 0 unless length $$buffref >= $length;
# Take and remove the data from the buffer
my $data = substr( $$buffref, 0, $length, "" );
print "Received a line $line with some data ($data)\n";
return undef; # Restore the original method
}
}
elsif( $$buffref =~ s/^LINE:(.*)\n// ) {
my $line = $1;
print "Received a line $line with no data\n";
return 1;
}
else {
print STDERR "Unrecognised input\n";
# Handle it somehow
}
}
In the case where trailing data is supplied, a new temporary "on_read"
callback is provided in a closure. This closure captures the $length
variable so it knows how much data to expect. It also captures the
$line variable so it can use it in the event report. When this method
has finished reading the data, it reports the event, then restores the
original method by returning "undef".
SEE ALSO
ยท IO::Handle - Supply object methods for I/O handles
AUTHOR
Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk>
perl v5.18.2 2014-05-14 IO::Async::Stream(3)
