# You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public License # or the Artistic License (the same terms as Perl itself) # # (C) Paul Evans, 2011-2013 -- leonerd@leonerd.org.uk package Future; use strict; use warnings; our $VERSION = '0.12'; use Carp qw(); # don't import croak use Scalar::Util qw( weaken blessed ); use constant DEBUG => $ENV{PERL_FUTURE_DEBUG}; =head1 NAME C<Future> - represent an operation awaiting completion =head1 SYNOPSIS my $future = Future->new; perform_some_operation( on_complete => sub { $future->done( @_ ); } ); $future->on_ready( sub { say "The operation is complete"; } ); =head1 DESCRIPTION A C<Future> object represents an operation that is currently in progress, or has recently completed. It can be used in a variety of ways to manage the flow of control, and data, through an asynchronous program. Some futures represent a single operation and are explicitly marked as ready by calling the C<done> or C<fail> methods. These are called "leaf" futures here, and are returned by the C<new> constructor. Other futures represent a collection sub-tasks, and are implicitly marked as ready depending on the readiness of their component futures as required. These are called "dependent" futures here, and are returned by the various C<wait_*> and C<need_*> constructors. It is intended that library functions that perform asynchonous operations would use C<Future> objects to represent outstanding operations, and allow their calling programs to control or wait for these operations to complete. The implementation and the user of such an interface would typically make use of different methods on the class. The methods below are documented in two sections; those of interest to each side of the interface. See also L<Future::Utils> which contains useful loop-constructing functions, to run a C<Future>-returning function repeatedly in a loop. =head2 SUBCLASSING This class easily supports being subclassed to provide extra behavior, such as giving the C<get> method the ability to block and wait for completion. This may be useful to provide C<Future> subclasses with event systems, or similar. Each method that returns a new C<Future> object will use the invocant to construct its return value. If the constructor needs to perform per-instance setup it can override the C<new> method, and take context from the given instance. sub new { my $proto = shift; my $self = $proto->SUPER::new; if( ref $proto ) { # Prototype was an instance } else { # Prototype was a class } return $self; } If an instance provides a method called C<await>, this will be called by the C<get> and C<failure> methods if the instance is pending. $f->await The F<examples> directory in the distribution contains some examples of how C<Future>s might be integrated with various event systems. =head2 DEBUGGING By the time a C<Future> object is destroyed, it ought to have been completed or cancelled. By enabling debug tracing of objects, this fact can be checked. If a C<Future> object is destroyed without having been completed or cancelled, a warning message is printed. This feature is enabled by setting an environment variable called C<PERL_FUTURE_DEBUG> to some true value. $ PERL_FUTURE_DEBUG=1 perl -MFuture -E 'my $f = Future->new' Future=HASH(0xaa61f8) was constructed at -e line 1 and was lost near -e line 0 before it was ready. Note that due to a limitation of perl's C<caller> function within a C<DESTROY> destructor method, the exact location of the leak cannot be accurately determined. Often the leak will occur due to falling out of scope by returning from a function; in this case the leak location may be reported as being the line following the line calling that function. $ PERL_FUTURE_DEBUG=1 perl -MFuture sub foo { my $f = Future->new; } foo(); print "Finished\n"; Future=HASH(0x14a2220) was constructed at - line 2 and was lost near - line 6 before it was ready. Finished =cut =head1 CONSTRUCTORS =cut =head2 $future = Future->new =head2 $future = $orig->new Returns a new C<Future> instance to represent a leaf future. It will be marked as ready by any of the C<done>, C<fail>, or C<cancel> methods. It can be called either as a class method, or as an instance method. Called on an instance it will construct another in the same class, and is useful for subclassing. This constructor would primarily be used by implementations of asynchronous interfaces. =cut sub new { my $proto = shift; return bless { ready => 0, callbacks => [], ( DEBUG ? ( constructed_at => join " line ", (caller)[1,2] ) : () ), }, ( ref $proto || $proto ); } my $GLOBAL_END; END { $GLOBAL_END = 1; } *DESTROY = sub { my $self = shift; return if $GLOBAL_END; return if $self->is_ready; my $lost_at = join " line ", (caller)[1,2]; # We can't actually know the real line where the last reference was lost; # a variable set to 'undef' or close of scope, because caller can't see it; # the current op has already been updated. The best we can do is indicate # 'near'. warn "$self was constructed at $self->{constructed_at} and was lost near $lost_at before it was ready.\n"; } if DEBUG; =head2 $future = $f1->followed_by( \&code ) Returns a new C<Future> instance that allows a sequence of operations to be performed. Once C<$f1> is ready, the code reference will be invoked and is passed one argument, being C<$f1>. It should return a future, C<$f2>. Once C<$f2> indicates completion the combined future C<$future> will then be marked as complete, with whatever result C<$f2> gave. $f2 = $code->( $f1 ) If C<$future> is cancelled before C<$f1> completes, then C<$f1> will be cancelled. If it is cancelled after completion then C<$f2> is cancelled instead. If the C<$code> block dies entirely and throws an exception, this will be caught and set as the failure for the returned C<$fseq>. The exception will not be propagated to the caller of the method that caused C<$f1> to be ready. As it is always a mistake to call this method in void context and lose the reference to the returned C<Future> (because exception/error handling would be silently dropped), this method warns in void context. =cut sub followed_by { my $f1 = shift; my ( $code ) = @_; # For later, we might want to know where we were called from my $func = "followed_by"; $func = (caller 1)[3] and $func =~ s/^.*::// if caller eq __PACKAGE__; my $where = Carp::shortmess "in $func"; my $fseq = $f1->new; my $f2; $f1->on_ready( sub { my $self = shift; return if $self->is_cancelled; unless( eval { $f2 = $code->( $self ); 1 } ) { $fseq->fail( $@ ); return; } unless( blessed $f2 and $f2->isa( "Future" ) ) { die "Expected code to return a Future $where"; } $f2->on_ready( sub { my $f2 = shift; if( $f2->is_cancelled ) { return; } elsif( $f2->failure ) { $fseq->fail( $f2->failure ); } else { $fseq->done( $f2->get ); } } ); } ); $fseq->on_cancel( sub { ( $f2 || $f1 )->cancel } ) if not $fseq->is_ready; if( !defined wantarray ) { Carp::carp "Calling ->$func in void context"; } return $fseq; } =head2 $future = $f1->and_then( \&code ) A convenient shortcut to C<followed_by>, which invokes the supplied code reference only if the first future completes successfully. If it fails, then the returned future will fail with the same error and the code reference will not be invoked. =cut sub and_then { my $self = shift; my ( $code ) = @_; return $self->followed_by( sub { my $self = shift; return $self if $self->failure; return $code->( $self ); }); } =head2 $future = $f1->or_else( \&code ) A convenient shortcut to C<followed_by>, which invokes the supplied code reference only if the first future fails. If it completes successfully, then the returned future will complete with the same result and the code reference will not be invoked. =cut sub or_else { my $self = shift; my ( $code ) = @_; return $self->followed_by( sub { my $self = shift; return $self if not $self->failure; return $code->( $self ); }); } =head2 $future = $f1->transform( %args ) Returns a new C<Future> instance that wraps the one given as C<$f1>. With no arguments this will be a trivial wrapper; C<$future> will complete or fail when C<$f1> does, and C<$f1> will be cancelled when C<$future> is. By passing the following named argmuents, the returned C<$future> can be made to behave differently to C<$f1>: =over 8 =item done => CODE Provides a function to use to modify the result of a successful completion. When C<$f1> completes successfully, the result of its C<get> method is passed into this function, and whatever it returns is passed to the C<done> method of C<$future> =item fail => CODE Provides a function to use to modify the result of a failure. When C<$f1> fails, the result of its C<failure> method is passed into this function, and whatever it returns is passed to the C<fail> method of C<$future>. =back =cut sub transform { my $self = shift; my %args = @_; my $xfrm_done = $args{done}; my $xfrm_fail = $args{fail}; return $self->followed_by( sub { my $self = shift; if( !$self->failure ) { return $self->new->done( $xfrm_done ? $xfrm_done->( $self->get ) : $self->get ); } else { return $self->new->fail( $xfrm_fail ? $xfrm_fail->( $self->failure ) : $self->failure ); } }); } sub _mark_ready { my $self = shift; $self->{ready} = 1; my $fail = defined $self->failure; my $done = !$fail && !$self->is_cancelled; foreach my $cb ( @{ $self->{callbacks} } ) { my ( $type, $code ) = @$cb; my $is_future = blessed $code and $code->isa( "Future" ); if( $type eq "ready" ) { $is_future ? ( $done ? $code->done( $self->get ) : $fail ? $code->fail( $self->failure ) : $code->cancel ) : $code->( $self ); } elsif( $type eq "done" and $done ) { $is_future ? $code->done( $self->get ) : $code->( $self->get ); } elsif( $type eq "failed" and $fail ) { $is_future ? $code->fail( $self->failure ) : $code->( $self->failure ); } } delete $self->{callbacks}; # To drop references } =head1 IMPLEMENTATION METHODS These methods would primarily be used by implementations of asynchronous interfaces. =cut =head2 $future->done( @result ) Marks that the leaf future is now ready, and provides a list of values as a result. (The empty list is allowed, and still indicates the future as ready). Cannot be called on a dependent future. Returns the C<$future>. =cut sub done { my $self = shift; $self->is_ready and Carp::croak "$self is already complete and cannot be ->done twice"; $self->{subs} and Carp::croak "$self is not a leaf Future, cannot be ->done"; $self->{result} = [ @_ ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } =head2 $code = $future->done_cb Returns a C<CODE> reference that, when invoked, calls the C<done> method. This makes it simple to pass as a callback function to other code. The same effect can be achieved using L<curry>: $code = $future->curry::done; =cut sub done_cb { my $self = shift; return sub { $self->done( @_ ) }; } =head2 $future->fail( $exception, @details ) Marks that the leaf future has failed, and provides an exception value. This exception will be thrown by the C<get> method if called. The exception must evaluate as a true value; false exceptions are not allowed. Further details may be provided that will be returned by the C<failure> method in list context. These details will not be part of the exception string raised by C<get>. Returns the C<$future>. =cut sub fail { my $self = shift; my ( $exception, @details ) = @_; $self->is_ready and Carp::croak "$self is already complete and cannot be ->fail'ed"; $self->{subs} and Carp::croak "$self is not a leaf Future, cannot be ->fail'ed"; $_[0] or Carp::croak "$self ->fail requires an exception that is true"; $self->{failure} = [ $exception, @details ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } =head2 $code = $future->fail_cb Returns a C<CODE> reference that, when invoked, calls the C<fail> method. This makes it simple to pass as a callback function to other code. The same effect can be achieved using L<curry>: $code = $future->curry::fail; =cut sub fail_cb { my $self = shift; return sub { $self->fail( @_ ) }; } =head2 $future->die( $message, @details ) A convenient wrapper around C<fail>. If the exception is a non-reference that does not end in a linefeed, its value will be extended by the file and line number of the caller, similar to the logic that C<die> uses. Returns the C<$future>. =cut sub die { my $self = shift; my ( $exception, @details ) = @_; if( !ref $exception and $exception !~ m/\n$/ ) { $exception .= sprintf " at %s line %d\n", (caller)[1,2]; } $self->fail( $exception, @details ); } =head2 $future->on_cancel( $code ) If the future is not yet ready, adds a callback to be invoked if the future is cancelled by the C<cancel> method. If the future is already ready, throws an exception. If the future is cancelled, the callbacks will be invoked in the reverse order to that in which they were registered. $on_cancel->( $future ) =head2 $future->on_cancel( $f ) If passed another C<Future> instance, the passed instance will be cancelled when the original future is cancelled. This method does nothing if the future is already complete. =cut sub on_cancel { my $self = shift; $self->is_ready and return; push @{ $self->{on_cancel} }, @_; } =head2 $cancelled = $future->is_cancelled Returns true if the future has been cancelled by C<cancel>. =cut sub is_cancelled { my $self = shift; return $self->{cancelled}; } =head1 USER METHODS These methods would primarily be used by users of asynchronous interfaces, on objects returned by such an interface. =cut =head2 $ready = $future->is_ready Returns true on a leaf future if a result has been provided to the C<done> method, failed using the C<fail> method, or cancelled using the C<cancel> method. Returns true on a dependent future if it is ready to yield a result, depending on its component futures. =cut sub is_ready { my $self = shift; return $self->{ready}; } =head2 $future->on_ready( $code ) If the future is not yet ready, adds a callback to be invoked when the future is ready. If the future is already ready, invokes it immediately. In either case, the callback will be passed the future object itself. The invoked code can then obtain the list of results by calling the C<get> method. $on_ready->( $future ) Returns the C<$future>. =head2 $future->on_ready( $f ) If passed another C<Future> instance, the passed instance will have its C<done>, C<fail> or C<cancel> methods invoked when the original future completes successfully, fails, or is cancelled respectively. =cut sub on_ready { my $self = shift; my ( $code ) = @_; if( $self->is_ready ) { my $is_future = blessed $code and $code->isa( "Future" ); my $fail = defined $self->failure; my $done = !$fail && !$self->is_cancelled; $is_future ? ( $done ? $code->done( $self->get ) : $fail ? $code->fail( $self->failure ) : $code->cancel ) : $code->( $self ); } else { push @{ $self->{callbacks} }, [ ready => $code ]; } return $self; } =head2 @result = $future->get =head2 $result = $future->get If the future is ready and completed successfully, returns the list of results that had earlier been given to the C<done> method on a leaf future, or the list of component futures it was waiting for on a dependent future. In scalar context it returns just the first result value. If the future is ready but failed, this method raises as an exception the failure string or object that was given to the C<fail> method. If it is not yet ready, or was cancelled, an exception is thrown. =cut sub await { my $self = shift; Carp::croak "$self is not yet complete"; } sub get { my $self = shift; $self->await until $self->is_ready; if( $self->{failure} ) { my $exception = $self->{failure}->[0]; !ref $exception && $exception =~ m/\n$/ ? CORE::die $exception : Carp::croak $exception; } $self->is_cancelled and Carp::croak "$self was cancelled"; return $self->{result}->[0] unless wantarray; return @{ $self->{result} }; } =head2 $future->on_done( $code ) If the future is not yet ready, adds a callback to be invoked when the future is ready, if it completes successfully. If the future completed successfully, invokes it immediately. If it failed or was cancelled, it is not invoked at all. The callback will be passed the result passed to the C<done> method. $on_done->( @result ) Returns the C<$future>. =head2 $future->on_done( $f ) If passed another C<Future> instance, the passed instance will have its C<done> method invoked when the original future completes successfully. =cut sub on_done { my $self = shift; my ( $code ) = @_; if( $self->is_ready ) { return $self if $self->failure or $self->is_cancelled; my $is_future = blessed $code and $code->isa( "Future" ); $is_future ? $code->done( $self->get ) : $code->( $self->get ); } else { push @{ $self->{callbacks} }, [ done => $code ]; } return $self; } =head2 $exception = $future->failure =head2 $exception, @details = $future->failure Returns the exception passed to the C<fail> method, C<undef> if the future completed successfully via the C<done> method, or raises an exception if called on a future that is not yet ready. If called in list context, will additionally yield a list of the details provided to the C<fail> method. Because the exception value must be true, this can be used in a simple C<if> statement: if( my $exception = $future->failure ) { ... } else { my @result = $future->get; ... } =cut sub failure { my $self = shift; $self->await until $self->is_ready; return unless $self->{failure}; return $self->{failure}->[0] if !wantarray; return @{ $self->{failure} }; } =head2 $future->on_fail( $code ) If the future is not yet ready, adds a callback to be invoked when the future is ready, if it fails. If the future has already failed, invokes it immediately. If it completed successfully or was cancelled, it is not invoked at all. The callback will be passed the exception and details passed to the C<fail> method. $on_fail->( $exception, @details ) Returns the C<$future>. =head2 $future->on_fail( $f ) If passed another C<Future> instance, the passed instance will have its C<fail> method invoked when the original future fails. To invoke a C<done> method on a future when another one fails, use a CODE reference: $future->on_fail( sub { $f->done( @_ ) } ); =cut sub on_fail { my $self = shift; my ( $code ) = @_; if( $self->is_ready ) { return $self if not $self->failure; my $is_future = blessed $code and $code->isa( "Future" ); $is_future ? $code->fail( $self->failure ) : $code->( $self->failure ); } else { push @{ $self->{callbacks} }, [ failed => $code ]; } return $self; } =head2 $future->cancel Requests that the future be cancelled, immediately marking it as ready. This will invoke all of the code blocks registered by C<on_cancel>, in the reverse order. When called on a dependent future, all its component futures are also cancelled. It is not an error to attempt to cancel a Future that is already complete or cancelled; it simply has no effect. Returns the C<$future>. =cut sub cancel { my $self = shift; return if $self->is_ready; $self->{cancelled}++; foreach my $cb ( reverse @{ $self->{on_cancel} || [] } ) { my $is_future = blessed $cb and $cb->isa( "Future" ); $is_future ? $cb->cancel : $cb->( $self ); } $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } =head2 $code = $future->cancel_cb Returns a C<CODE> reference that, when invoked, calls the C<cancel> method. This makes it simple to pass as a callback function to other code. The same effect can be achieved using L<curry>: $code = $future->curry::cancel; =cut sub cancel_cb { my $self = shift; return sub { $self->cancel }; } =head1 DEPENDENT FUTURES The following constructors all take a list of component futures, and return a new future whose readiness somehow depends on the readiness of those components. The first component future will be used as the prototype for constructing the return value, so it respects subclassing correctly. =cut sub _new_dependent { shift; # ignore this class my ( $subs ) = @_; my $self = $subs->[0]->new; foreach my $sub ( @$subs ) { blessed $sub and $sub->isa( "Future" ) or Carp::croak "Expected a Future, got $_"; } $self->{subs} = $subs; $self->on_cancel( sub { foreach my $sub ( @$subs ) { $sub->cancel if !$sub->is_ready; } } ); return $self; } =head2 $future = Future->wait_all( @subfutures ) Returns a new C<Future> instance that will indicate it is ready once all of the sub future objects given to it indicate that they are ready, either by success or failure. Its result will a list of its component futures. This constructor would primarily be used by users of asynchronous interfaces. =cut sub wait_all { my $class = shift; my @subs = @_; my $self = Future->_new_dependent( \@subs ); # Look for immediate ready my $immediate_ready = 1; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $immediate_ready = 0, last; } if( $immediate_ready ) { $self->{result} = [ @subs ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } weaken( my $weakself = $self ); my $sub_on_ready = sub { return if $_[0]->is_cancelled; return unless $weakself; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or return; } $weakself->{result} = [ @subs ]; $weakself->_mark_ready; }; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->on_ready( $sub_on_ready ); } return $self; } =head2 $future = Future->wait_any( @subfutures ) Returns a new C<Future> instance that will indicate it is ready once any of the sub future objects given to it indicate that they are ready, either by success or failure. Any remaining component futures that are not yet ready will be cancelled. Its result will be the result of the first component future that was ready; either success or failure. This constructor would primarily be used by users of asynchronous interfaces. =cut sub wait_any { my $class = shift; my @subs = @_; my $self = Future->_new_dependent( \@subs ); # Look for immediate ready my $immediate_ready; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready and $immediate_ready = $sub, last; } if( $immediate_ready ) { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->cancel; } if( $immediate_ready->failure ) { $self->{failure} = [ $immediate_ready->failure ]; } else { $self->{result} = [ $immediate_ready->get ]; } $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } weaken( my $weakself = $self ); my $sub_on_ready = sub { return if $_[0]->is_cancelled; return unless $weakself; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->cancel; } if( $_[0]->failure ) { $weakself->{failure} = [ $_[0]->failure ]; } else { $weakself->{result} = [ $_[0]->get ]; } $weakself->_mark_ready; }; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { # No need to test $sub->is_ready since we know none of them are $sub->on_ready( $sub_on_ready ); } return $self; } =head2 $future = Future->needs_all( @subfutures ) Returns a new C<Future> instance that will indicate it is ready once all of the sub future objects given to it indicate that they have completed successfully, or when any of them indicates that they have failed. If any sub future fails, then this will fail immediately, and the remaining subs not yet ready will be cancelled. If successful, its result will be a concatenated list of the results of all its component futures, in corresponding order. If it fails, its failure will be that of the first component future that failed. To access each component future's results individually, use C<done_futures>. This constructor would primarily be used by users of asynchronous interfaces. =cut sub needs_all { my $class = shift; my @subs = @_; my $self = Future->_new_dependent( \@subs ); # Look for immediate fail my $immediate_fail; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready and $sub->failure and $immediate_fail = $sub, last; } if( $immediate_fail ) { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->cancel; } $self->{failure} = [ $immediate_fail->failure ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } # Look for immediate done my $immediate_done = 1; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $immediate_done = 0, last; } if( $immediate_done ) { $self->{result} = [ map { $_->get } @subs ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } weaken( my $weakself = $self ); my $sub_on_ready = sub { return if $_[0]->is_cancelled; return unless $weakself; if( my @failure = $_[0]->failure ) { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->cancel if !$sub->is_ready; } $weakself->{failure} = \@failure; $weakself->_mark_ready; } else { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or return; } $weakself->{result} = [ map { $_->get } @subs ]; $weakself->_mark_ready; } }; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->on_ready( $sub_on_ready ); } return $self; } =head2 $future = Future->needs_any( @subfutures ) Returns a new C<Future> instance that will indicate it is ready once any of the sub future objects given to it indicate that they have completed successfully, or when all of them indicate that they have failed. If any sub future succeeds, then this will succeed immediately, and the remaining subs not yet ready will be cancelled. If successful, its result will be that of the first component future that succeeded. If it fails, its failure will be that of the last component future to fail. To access the other failures, use C<failed_futures>. Normally when this Future completes successfully, only one of its component futures will be done. If it is constructed with multiple that are already done however, then all of these will be returned from C<done_futures>. Users should be careful to still check all the results from C<done_futures> in that case. This constructor would primarily be used by users of asynchronous interfaces. =cut sub needs_any { my $class = shift; my @subs = @_; my $self = Future->_new_dependent( \@subs ); # Look for immediate done my $immediate_done; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready and !$sub->failure and $immediate_done = $sub, last; } if( $immediate_done ) { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->cancel; } $self->{result} = [ $immediate_done->get ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } # Look for immediate fail my $immediate_fail = 1; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $immediate_fail = 0, last; } if( $immediate_fail ) { # For consistency we'll pick the last one for the failure $self->{failure} = [ $subs[-1]->failure ]; $self->_mark_ready; return $self; } weaken( my $weakself = $self ); my $sub_on_ready = sub { return if $_[0]->is_cancelled; return unless $weakself; if( my @failure = $_[0]->failure ) { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or return; } $weakself->{failure} = \@failure; $weakself->_mark_ready; } else { foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->cancel if !$sub->is_ready; } $weakself->{result} = [ $_[0]->get ]; $weakself->_mark_ready; } }; foreach my $sub ( @subs ) { $sub->is_ready or $sub->on_ready( $sub_on_ready ); } return $self; } =head1 METHODS ON DEPENDENT FUTURES The following methods apply to dependent (i.e. non-leaf) futures, to access the component futures stored by it. =cut =head2 @f = $future->pending_futures =head2 @f = $future->ready_futures =head2 @f = $future->done_futures =head2 @f = $future->failed_futures =head2 @f = $future->cancelled_futures Return a list of all the pending, ready, done, failed, or cancelled component futures. In scalar context, each will yield the number of such component futures. =cut sub pending_futures { my $self = shift; $self->{subs} or Carp::croak "Cannot call ->pending_futures on a non-dependent Future"; return grep { not $_->is_ready } @{ $self->{subs} }; } sub ready_futures { my $self = shift; $self->{subs} or Carp::croak "Cannot call ->ready_futures on a non-dependent Future"; return grep { $_->is_ready } @{ $self->{subs} }; } sub done_futures { my $self = shift; $self->{subs} or Carp::croak "Cannot call ->done_futures on a non-dependent Future"; return grep { $_->is_ready and not $_->failure and not $_->is_cancelled } @{ $self->{subs} }; } sub failed_futures { my $self = shift; $self->{subs} or Carp::croak "Cannot call ->failed_futures on a non-dependent Future"; return grep { $_->is_ready and $_->failure } @{ $self->{subs} }; } sub cancelled_futures { my $self = shift; $self->{subs} or Carp::croak "Cannot call ->cancelled_futures on a non-dependent Future"; return grep { $_->is_ready and $_->is_cancelled } @{ $self->{subs} }; } =head1 EXAMPLES The following examples all demonstrate possible uses of a C<Future> object to provide a fictional asynchronous API function called simply C<koperation>. For more examples, comparing the use of C<Future> with regular call/return style Perl code, see also L<Future::Phrasebook>. =head2 Providing Results By returning a new C<Future> object each time the asynchronous function is called, it provides a placeholder for its eventual result, and a way to indicate when it is complete. sub foperation { my %args = @_; my $future = Future->new; do_something_async( foo => $args{foo}, on_done => sub { $future->done( @_ ); }, ); return $future; } In most cases, the C<done> method will simply be invoked with the entire result list as its arguments. In that case, it is simpler to use the C<done_cb> wrapper method to create the C<CODE> reference. my $future = Future->new; do_something_async( foo => $args{foo}, on_done => $future->done_cb, ); The caller may then use this future to wait for a result using the C<on_ready> method, and obtain the result using C<get>. my $f = foperation( foo => "something" ); $f->on_ready( sub { my $f = shift; say "The operation returned: ", $f->get; } ); =head2 Indicating Success or Failure Because the stored exception value of a failed future may not be false, the C<failure> method can be used in a conditional statement to detect success or failure. my $f = foperation( foo => "something" ); $f->on_ready( sub { my $f = shift; if( not my $e = $f->failure ) { say "The operation succeeded with: ", $f->get; } else { say "The operation failed with: ", $e; } } ); By using C<not> in the condition, the order of the C<if> blocks can be arranged to put the successful case first, similar to a C<try>/C<catch> block. Because the C<get> method re-raises the passed exception if the future failed, it can be used to control a C<try>/C<catch> block directly. (This is sometimes called I<Exception Hoisting>). use Try::Tiny; $f->on_ready( sub { my $f = shift; try { say "The operation succeeded with: ", $f->get; } catch { say "The operation failed with: ", $_; }; } ); Even neater still may be the separate use of the C<on_done> and C<on_fail> methods. $f->on_done( sub { my @result = @_; say "The operation succeeded with: ", @result; } ); $f->on_fail( sub { my ( $failure ) = @_; say "The operation failed with: $failure"; } ); =head2 Immediate Futures Because the C<done> method returns the future object itself, it can be used to generate a C<Future> that is immediately ready with a result. my $f = Future->new->done( $value ); Similarly, the C<fail> and C<die> methods can be used to generate a C<Future> that is immediately failed. my $f = Future->new->die( "This is never going to work" ); This could be considered similarly to a C<die> call. =head2 Sequencing The C<and_then> method can be used to create simple chains of dependent tasks, each one executing and returning a C<Future> when the previous operation succeeds. my $f = do_first() ->and_then( sub { return do_second(); }) ->and_then( sub { return do_third(); }); The result of the C<$f> future itself will be the result of the future returned by the final function, if none of them failed. If any of them fails it will fail with the same failure. This can be considered similar to normal exception handling in synchronous code; the first time a function call throws an exception, the subsequent calls are not made. =head2 Merging Control Flow A C<wait_all> future may be used to resynchronise control flow, while waiting for multiple concurrent operations to finish. my $f1 = foperation( foo => "something" ); my $f2 = foperation( bar => "something else" ); my $f = Future->wait_all( $f1, $f2 ); $f->on_ready( sub { say "Operations are ready:"; say " foo: ", $f1->get; say " bar: ", $f2->get; } ); This provides an ability somewhat similar to C<CPS::kpar()> or L<Async::MergePoint>. =cut =head1 SEE ALSO =over 4 =item * L<curry> - Create automatic curried method call closures for any class or object =item * "The Past, The Present and The Future" - slides from a talk given at the London Perl Workshop, 2012. L<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UkV5oLcTOOXBXPh8foyxko4PR28_zU_aVx6gBms7uoo/edit> =back =cut =head1 AUTHOR Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk> =cut 0x55AA;