nim-chronos/chronos/asyncloop.nim

#
#                     Chronos
#
#           (c) Copyright 2015 Dominik Picheta
#  (c) Copyright 2018-Present Status Research & Development GmbH
#
#                Licensed under either of
#    Apache License, version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHEv2)
#                MIT license (LICENSE-MIT)

{.push raises: [].}

## Chronos
## *************
##
## This module implements asynchronous IO. This includes a dispatcher,
## a ``Future`` type implementation, and an ``async`` macro which allows
## asynchronous code to be written in a synchronous style with the ``await``
## keyword.
##
## The dispatcher acts as a kind of event loop. You must call ``poll`` on it
## (or a function which does so for you such as ``waitFor`` or ``runForever``)
## in order to poll for any outstanding events. The underlying implementation
## is based on epoll on Linux, IO Completion Ports on Windows and select on
## other operating systems.
##
## The ``poll`` function will not, on its own, return any events. Instead
## an appropriate ``Future`` object will be completed. A ``Future`` is a
## type which holds a value which is not yet available, but which *may* be
## available in the future. You can check whether a future is finished
## by using the ``finished`` function. When a future is finished it means that
## either the value that it holds is now available or it holds an error instead.
## The latter situation occurs when the operation to complete a future fails
## with an exception. You can distinguish between the two situations with the
## ``failed`` function.
##
## Future objects can also store a callback procedure which will be called
## automatically once the future completes.
##
## Futures therefore can be thought of as an implementation of the proactor
## pattern. In this
## pattern you make a request for an action, and once that action is fulfilled
## a future is completed with the result of that action. Requests can be
## made by calling the appropriate functions. For example: calling the ``recv``
## function will create a request for some data to be read from a socket. The
## future which the ``recv`` function returns will then complete once the
## requested amount of data is read **or** an exception occurs.
##
## Code to read some data from a socket may look something like this:
##
##   .. code-block::nim
##      var future = socket.recv(100)
##      future.addCallback(
##        proc () =
##          echo(future.read)
##      )
##
## All asynchronous functions returning a ``Future`` will not block. They
## will not however return immediately. An asynchronous function will have
## code which will be executed before an asynchronous request is made, in most
## cases this code sets up the request.
##
## In the above example, the ``recv`` function will return a brand new
## ``Future`` instance once the request for data to be read from the socket
## is made. This ``Future`` instance will complete once the requested amount
## of data is read, in this case it is 100 bytes. The second line sets a
## callback on this future which will be called once the future completes.
## All the callback does is write the data stored in the future to ``stdout``.
## The ``read`` function is used for this and it checks whether the future
## completes with an error for you (if it did it will simply raise the
## error), if there is no error however it returns the value of the future.
##
## Asynchronous procedures
## -----------------------
##
## Asynchronous procedures remove the pain of working with callbacks. They do
## this by allowing you to write asynchronous code the same way as you would
## write synchronous code.
##
## An asynchronous procedure is marked using the ``{.async.}`` pragma.
## When marking a procedure with the ``{.async.}`` pragma it must have a
## ``Future[T]`` return type or no return type at all. If you do not specify
## a return type then ``Future[void]`` is assumed.
##
## Inside asynchronous procedures ``await`` can be used to call any
## procedures which return a
## ``Future``; this includes asynchronous procedures. When a procedure is
## "awaited", the asynchronous procedure it is awaited in will
## suspend its execution
## until the awaited procedure's Future completes. At which point the
## asynchronous procedure will resume its execution. During the period
## when an asynchronous procedure is suspended other asynchronous procedures
## will be run by the dispatcher.
##
## The ``await`` call may be used in many contexts. It can be used on the right
## hand side of a variable declaration: ``var data = await socket.recv(100)``,
## in which case the variable will be set to the value of the future
## automatically. It can be used to await a ``Future`` object, and it can
## be used to await a procedure returning a ``Future[void]``:
## ``await socket.send("foobar")``.
##
## If an awaited future completes with an error, then ``await`` will re-raise
## this error.
##
## Handling Exceptions
## -------------------
##
## The ``async`` procedures also offer support for the try statement.
##
##    .. code-block:: Nim
##      try:
##        let data = await sock.recv(100)
##        echo("Received ", data)
##      except CancelledError as exc:
##        # Handle exc
##
## Discarding futures
## ------------------
##
## Futures should **never** be discarded. This is because they may contain
## errors. If you do not care for the result of a Future then you should
## use the ``asyncSpawn`` procedure instead of the ``discard`` keyword.
## ``asyncSpawn`` will transform any exception thrown by the called procedure
## to a Defect
##
## Limitations/Bugs
## ----------------
##
## * The effect system (``raises: []``) does not work with async procedures.

import ./internal/[asyncengine, asyncfutures, asyncmacro, errors]

export asyncfutures, asyncengine, errors
export asyncmacro.async, asyncmacro.await, asyncmacro.awaitne