Module actors

Actor support for Nim. An actor is implemented as a thread with a channel as its inbox. This module requires the --threads:on command line switch.

Example:

var
  a: TActorPool[int, void]
createActorPool(a)
for i in 0 .. < 300:
  a.spawn(i, proc (x: int) {.thread.} = echo x)
a.join()

Note: This whole module is deprecated. Use threadpool and spawn instead.

Types

TTask[TIn, TOut] = object  {.pure, final.}
  when true: receiver
  action*: proc (x: TIn): TOut {.thread.} ## action to execute;
                                          ## sometimes useful
  shutDown*: bool             ## set to tell an actor to shut-down
  data*: TIn                  ## the data to process
  
a task   Source
PActor[TIn, TOut] = ptr TActor[TIn, TOut]
an actor   Source
TActorPool[TIn, TOut] = object  {.pure, final.}
  actors: seq[PActor[TIn, TOut]]
  when true: outputs
  
an actor pool   Source

Procs

proc spawn[TIn, TOut](action: proc (self: PActor[TIn, TOut]) {.thread.}): PActor[
    TIn, TOut]
creates an actor; that is a thread with an inbox. The caller MUST call join because that also frees the actor's associated resources.   Source
proc inbox[TIn, TOut](self: PActor[TIn, TOut]): ptr TChannel[TIn]
gets a pointer to the associated inbox of the actor self.   Source
proc running[TIn, TOut](a: PActor[TIn, TOut]): bool
returns true if the actor a is running.   Source
proc ready[TIn, TOut](a: PActor[TIn, TOut]): bool
returns true if the actor a is ready to process new messages.   Source
proc join[TIn, TOut](a: PActor[TIn, TOut])
joins an actor.   Source
proc recv[TIn, TOut](a: PActor[TIn, TOut]): TTask[TIn, TOut]
receives a task from a's inbox.   Source
proc send[TIn, TOut, X, Y](receiver: PActor[TIn, TOut]; msg: TIn; 
                           sender: PActor[X, Y])
sends a message to a's inbox.   Source
proc send[TIn, TOut](receiver: PActor[TIn, TOut]; msg: TIn; 
                     sender: ptr TChannel[TOut] = nil)
sends a message to receiver's inbox.   Source
proc sendShutdown[TIn, TOut](receiver: PActor[TIn, TOut])
send a shutdown message to receiver.   Source
proc reply[TIn, TOut](t: TTask[TIn, TOut]; m: TOut)
sends a message to io's output message box.   Source
proc `^`[T](f: ptr TChannel[T]): T
alias for 'recv'.   Source
proc createActorPool[TIn, TOut](a: var TActorPool[TIn, TOut]; poolSize = 4)
creates an actor pool.   Source
proc sync[TIn, TOut](a: var TActorPool[TIn, TOut]; polling = 50)
waits for every actor of a to finish with its work. Currently this is implemented as polling every polling ms and has a slight chance of failing since we check for every actor to be in ready state and not for messages still in ether. This will change in a later version, however.   Source
proc terminate[TIn, TOut](a: var TActorPool[TIn, TOut])
terminates each actor in the actor pool a and frees the resources attached to a.   Source
proc join[TIn, TOut](a: var TActorPool[TIn, TOut])
short-cut for sync and then terminate.   Source
proc spawn[TIn, TOut](p: var TActorPool[TIn, TOut]; input: TIn; 
                      action: proc (input: TIn): TOut {.thread.}): ptr TChannel[
    TOut]
uses the actor pool to run action(input) concurrently. spawn is guaranteed to not block.   Source
proc spawn[TIn](p: var TActorPool[TIn, void]; input: TIn; 
                action: proc (input: TIn) {.thread.})
uses the actor pool to run action(input) concurrently. spawn is guaranteed to not block.   Source