[ANN] slave-1.2.1

[Ara.T.Howard]

SYNOPSIS

the Slave class forks a process and starts a drb server in the child using
any object as the server. the process is detached so it is not required
(nor possible) to wait on the child pid. a Heartbeat is set up between the
parent and child processes so that the child will exit of the parent exits
for any reason - preventing orphaned slaves from running indefinitely. the
purpose of Slaves is to be able to easily set up a collection of objects
communicating via drb protocols instead of having to use IPC.

typical usage:

slave = Slave::new{ AnyObject.new }

slave.object #=> handle on drb object
slave.uri #=> uri of the drb object
slave.socket #=> unix domain socket path for drb object
slave.psname #=> title shown in ps/top

object = slave.object

value = object.any_method #=> use the object normally

slaves may be configured via the environment, the Slave class, or via the
ctor for object itself. attributes which may be configured include

* object : specify the slave object. otherwise block value is used.
* socket_creation_attempts : specify how many attempts to create a unix domain socket will be made
* debug : turn on some logging to STDERR
* psname : specify the name that will appear in 'top' ($0)
* at_exit : specify a lambda to be called in the *parent* when the child dies
* dumped : specify that the slave object should *not* be DRbUndumped (default is DRbUndumped)
* threadsafe : wrap the slave object with ThreadSafe to implement gross thread safety

URIS

http://rubyforge.org/projects/codeforpeople/
http://codeforpeople.com/lib/ruby/slave

HISTORY

1.2.1:
- jruby/ThreadSafe patches from skaar and ez. using slave.rb with jruby,
how cool is that!?

SAMPLES

<========< samples/a.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/a.rb

require 'slave'
#
# simple usage is simply to stand up a server object as a slave. you do not
# need to wait for the server, join it, etc. it will die when the parent
# process dies - even under 'kill -9' conditions
#
class Server
def add_two n
n + 2
end
end

slave = Slave.new bject => Server.new

server = slave.object
p server.add_two(40) #=> 42

slave.shutdown

~ > ruby samples/a.rb

42


<========< samples/b.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/b.rb

require 'slave'
#
# if certain operations need to take place in the child only a block can be
# used
#
class Server
def connect_to_db
"we only want to do this in the child process!"
@connection = ostgresql
end
attr :connection
end

slave = Slave.new('object' => Server.new){|s| s.connect_to_db}

server = slave.object

p server.connection #=> ostgresql
#
# errors in the child are detected and raised in the parent
#
slave = Slave.new('object' => Server.new){|s| s.typo} #=> raises an error!

~ > ruby samples/b.rb

ostgresql
samples/b.rb:22: undefined method `typo' for #<Server:0xb756ed18> (NoMethodError)
from ./lib/slave.rb:369:in `[]'
from ./lib/slave.rb:369:in `initialize'
from samples/b.rb:22:in `new'
from samples/b.rb:22


<========< samples/c.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/c.rb

require 'slave'
#
# if no slave object is given the block itself is used to contruct it
#
class Server
def initialize
"this is run only in the child"
@pid = Process.pid
end
attr 'pid'
end

slave = Slave.new{ Server.new }
server = slave.object

p Process.pid
p server.pid # not going to be the same as parents!
#
# errors are still detected though
#
slave = Slave.new{ fubar } # raises error in parent

~ > ruby samples/c.rb

7971
7972
samples/c.rb:21: undefined local variable or method `fubar' for main:Object (NameError)
from ./lib/slave.rb:361:in `call'
from ./lib/slave.rb:361:in `initialize'
from samples/c.rb:21:in `new'
from samples/c.rb:21


<========< samples/d.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/d.rb

require 'slave'
#
# at_exit hanlders are handled correctly in both child and parent
#
at_exit{ p 'parent' }
slave = Slave.new{ at_exit{ p 'child' }; 'the server is this string' }
#
# this will print 'child', then 'parent'
#

~ > ruby samples/d.rb

"child"
"parent"


<========< samples/e.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/e.rb

require 'slave'
#
# slaves never outlive their parent. if the parent exits, even under kill -9,
# the child will die.
#
slave = Slave.new{ at_exit{ p 'child' }; 'the server is this string' }

Process.kill brutal=9, the_parent_pid=Process.pid
#
# even though parent dies a nasty death the child will still print 'child'
#

~ > ruby samples/e.rb

"child"


<========< samples/f.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/f.rb

require 'slave'
#
# slaves created previously are visible to newly created slaves - in this
# example the child process of slave_a communicates directly with the child
# process of slave_a
#
slave_a = Slave.new{ Array.new }
slave_b = Slave.new{ slave_a.object }

a, b = slave_b.object, slave_a.object

b << 42
puts a #=> 42

~ > ruby samples/f.rb

42


<========< samples/g.rb >========>

~ > cat samples/g.rb

require 'slave'
#
# Slave.object can used when you want to construct an object in another
# process. in otherwords you want to fork a process and retrieve a single
# returned object from that process as opposed to setting up a server.
#
this = Process.pid
that = Slave.object{ Process.pid }

p 'this' => this, 'that' => that

#
# any object can be returned and it can be returned asychronously via a thread
#
thread = Slave.objectasync => true){ sleep 2 and [ Process.pid, Time.now ] }
this = [ Process.pid, Time.now ]
that = thread.value

p 'this' => this, 'that' => that

~ > ruby samples/g.rb

{"that"=>7990, "this"=>7989}
{"that"=>[7991, Fri, Apr 27 2007 16:38:30 -0600], "this"=>[7989, Fri, Apr 27 2007 16:38:28 -0600]}


enjoy.

-a

 

[John Stoffel]

SYNOPSIS

the Slave class forks a process and starts a drb server in the child
using
any object as the server. the process is detached so it is not
required
(nor possible) to wait on the child pid. a Heartbeat is set up
between the
parent and child processes so that the child will exit of the parent
exits
for any reason - preventing orphaned slaves from running
indefinitely. the
purpose of Slaves is to be able to easily set up a collection of
objects
communicating via drb protocols instead of having to use IPC.

Is this being maintained any more? Should I be using some other module
for the same functionality in the future? It's a nice tool to use, but
I'm going insane trying to debug issues and warnings with the code in my
Recursive Parallel directory descent tool.

Thanks,
John