Opal-Async

Non-blocking tasks and enumerators for Opal.

Description

Non-blocking tasks and enumerators for Opal, including async countdown, timeout, and interval.

Monthly Downloads: 103

Programming language: Ruby

License: MIT License

Tags: Concurrency     Rails     Ruby     Concurrent Processing     Opal     Async    

Latest version: v1.2.0

README

Opal: Async

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'opal-async', '~> 1.2.0'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install opal-async

Then require 'opal-async' in both your Opal code and your Opal compilation environment.

Usage

Enumerator

The enumerator provides iteration methods for any enumerable object. These methods are 'non-blocking', so other operations in the event loop can continue to be executed in between iterations. Beware, this is not faster than a normal blocking iteration; it is trading off performance for not blocking other operations you may want to have continue such as UI updates & camera frame capture. Very large arrays will take a long time to finish while the overhead may not be noticeable for smaller arrays. It is best to do some tests and assess whether the trade-off is balanced enough for your needs.

Methods can be chained and when the enumerator is finished, a promise is executed using #done.

For example:

require 'opal-async'
enumerator = Async::Enumerator.new([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9])
enumerator.map{|x| x + 2}.done{|x| puts x}
#=> [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]

Here's an example of method-chaining:

enumerator = Async::Enumerator.new([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9])
enumerator.map{|x| x + 2}.each_slice(3).each{|x| puts x}
#=> [3,4,5]
#=> [6,7,8]
#=> [9,10,11]

Available enumerator methods:

• each
• map
• each_slice
• select
• reject

Task

A task contains code that will be added to the call stack of the event loop. The Enumerator uses tasks to run small chunks of code without blocking the event loop. A task can do the same things that a Timeout or an Interval can do but with some added features and optimizations.

With no options provided, a task will be run immediately once the event loop comes back to it(if the environment supports this). If the environment does not support immediates, it will attempt to polyfill an immediate before falling back on a 0ms timeout.

Example:

Async::Task.new do
  puts "hello world"
end

#=> hello world

By default, a task will only run once. To make a task repeat, set the option times to however many times you want the task to repeat. You can also have access to countup and countdown variables.

Async::Task.new do times: 5 do |countup, countdown|
  puts countdown
end

#=> 5
#=> 4
#=> 3
#=> 2
#=> 1

To make a task repeat infinitely, set times to :infinite, or repeat to true. A countup will be provided but no countdown. You can also use :i for short.

Async::Task.new times: :infinite do
  puts "forever"
end

#=> forever
#=> forever
#=> forever
...

The step option will determine how much you want your task to "step".

Async::Task.new times: 10, step: 2 do |countup, countdown|
  puts countup
end

#=> 0
#=> 2
#=> 4
#=> 6
#=> 8

To set a delay time on your task, specify the delay option with the number of milliseconds you want the duration of the delay to be. This can also be done when you have set your task to repeat.

Async::Task.new delay: 1000 do
  puts "this took 1 second"
end 

The delay and steps of a task can be modified within the execution of the task. The following example will start out slow and increase in speed:

task = Async::Task.new times: 5, delay: 5000 do |countup, countdown|
  puts countdown
  task.delay = task.delay - 1000
end

Tasks also have callbacks that can be performed on certain events.

Here is an example of how to execute code after a repeating task has finished:

task = Async::Task.new times: 3, delay: 1000 do |countup, countdown|
  puts countdown
end

task.on_finish {puts "BOOM"}

#=> 3
#=> 2
#=> 1
#=> BOOM

Other callbacks include on_start and on_stop.

Other Timers

You can also set timeouts and intervals, specifically:

Async::Timeout.new 3000 do
  puts "I just waited 3 seconds."
end

Async::Interval.new 3000 do
  puts "I'm going to do this every 3 seconds."
end

Ruby Extensions

opal-async ships with some Opal Ruby extensions that enhance Ruby classes with asynchronous capabilities.

You may activate all the Ruby extensions via this require statement:

require 'async/ext'

Thread

You may use the Async::Task class as a Thread class in Opal to perform asynchronous work with an extra require statement.

require 'async/ext/thread' # not needed if you called `require 'async/ext'`

Thread.new do
  puts "hello world"
end

Array

Array#cycle has been amended to work asynchronously via Async::Task when triggered inside another Async::Task (auto-detects it)

This makes it not block the web browser event loop, thus allowing other tasks to update the DOM unhindered while Array#cycle is running.

require 'async/ext/array' # not needed if you called `require 'async/ext'`

Async::Task.new do
  [1,2,3,4].cycle do |n| 
    puts n
    Async::Task.new do
      # make a DOM update
    end
    sleep(1) # this does not block the event loop since it is transparently happening inside an Async::Task
  end
end

In The Wild

opal-async is currently used in:

• Glimmer DSL for Opal

Change Log

[CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md)

Contributors

• Benjamin Titcomb (Creator and Main Contributor)
• Andy Maleh (Gemifier and Maintainer)