You may also choose to assign the strings C<'IGNORE'> or C<'DEFAULT'> as
the handler, in which case Perl will try to discard the signal or do the
-default thing. Some signals can be neither trapped nor ignored, such as
+default thing.
+
+On most Unix platforms, the C<CHLD> (sometimes also known as C<CLD>) signal
+has special behavior with respect to a value of C<'IGNORE'>.
+Setting C<$SIG{CHLD}> to C<'IGNORE'> on such a platform has the effect of
+not creating zombie processes when the parent process fails to C<wait()>
+on its child processes (i.e. child processes are automatically reaped).
+Calling C<wait()> with C<$SIG{CHLD}> set to C<'IGNORE'> usually returns
+C<-1> on such platforms.
+
+Some signals can be neither trapped nor ignored, such as
the KILL and STOP (but not the TSTP) signals. One strategy for
temporarily ignoring signals is to use a local() statement, which will be
automatically restored once your block is exited. (Remember that local()
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
# now do something that forks...
-or even the more elaborate:
+or better still:
use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";
sub REAPER {
my $child;
- while ($child = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) {
+ # If a second child dies while in the signal handler caused by the
+ # first death, we won't get another signal. So must loop here else
+ # we will leave the unreaped child as a zombie. And the next time
+ # two children die we get another zombie. And so on.
+ while (($child = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) {
$Kid_Status{$child} = $?;
}
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # still loathe sysV
};
if ($@ and $@ !~ /alarm clock restart/) { die }
+If the operation being timed out is system() or qx(), this technique
+is liable to generate zombies. If this matters to you, you'll
+need to do your own fork() and exec(), and kill the errant child process.
+
For more complex signal handling, you might see the standard POSIX
module. Lamentably, this is almost entirely undocumented, but
the F<t/lib/posix.t> file from the Perl source distribution has some
if ( system('mknod', $path, 'p')
&& system('mkfifo', $path) )
{
- die "mk{nod,fifo} $path failed;
+ die "mk{nod,fifo} $path failed";
}
sleep 2; # to avoid dup signals
}
+=head2 WARNING
+
+By installing Perl code to deal with signals, you're exposing yourself
+to danger from two things. First, few system library functions are
+re-entrant. If the signal interrupts while Perl is executing one function
+(like malloc(3) or printf(3)), and your signal handler then calls the
+same function again, you could get unpredictable behavior--often, a
+core dump. Second, Perl isn't itself re-entrant at the lowest levels.
+If the signal interrupts Perl while Perl is changing its own internal
+data structures, similarly unpredictable behaviour may result.
+
+There are two things you can do, knowing this: be paranoid or be
+pragmatic. The paranoid approach is to do as little as possible in your
+signal handler. Set an existing integer variable that already has a
+value, and return. This doesn't help you if you're in a slow system call,
+which will just restart. That means you have to C<die> to longjump(3) out
+of the handler. Even this is a little cavalier for the true paranoiac,
+who avoids C<die> in a handler because the system I<is> out to get you.
+The pragmatic approach is to say ``I know the risks, but prefer the
+convenience'', and to do anything you want in your signal handler,
+prepared to clean up core dumps now and again.
+
+To forbid signal handlers altogether would bars you from
+many interesting programs, including virtually everything in this manpage,
+since you could no longer even write SIGCHLD handlers.
+
=head1 Using open() for IPC
expecting filenames in @ARGV, the clever programmer can write something
like this:
- $ program f1 "cmd1|" - f2 "cmd2|" f3 < tmpfile
+ % program f1 "cmd1|" - f2 "cmd2|" f3 < tmpfile
and irrespective of which shell it's called from, the Perl program will
read from the file F<f1>, the process F<cmd1>, standard input (F<tmpfile>
While this is true on the surface, it's much more efficient to process the
file one line or record at a time because then you don't have to read the
-whole thing into memory at once. It also gives you finer control of the
+whole thing into memory at once. It also gives you finer control of the
whole process, letting you to kill off the child process early if you'd
like.
to bogus command will trigger a signal they'd better be prepared to
handle. Consider:
- open(FH, "|bogus");
- print FH "bang\n";
- close FH;
+ open(FH, "|bogus") or die "can't fork: $!";
+ print FH "bang\n" or die "can't write: $!";
+ close FH or die "can't close: $!";
+
+That won't blow up until the close, and it will blow up with a SIGPIPE.
+To catch it, you could use this:
+
+ $SIG{PIPE} = 'IGNORE';
+ open(FH, "|bogus") or die "can't fork: $!";
+ print FH "bang\n" or die "can't write: $!";
+ close FH or die "can't close: status=$?";
=head2 Filehandles
-Both the main process and the child process share the same STDIN,
-STDOUT and STDERR filehandles. If both processes try to access them
-at once, strange things can happen. You may want to close or reopen
-the filehandles for the child. You can get around this by opening
-your pipe with open(), but on some systems this means that the child
-process cannot outlive the parent.
+Both the main process and any child processes it forks share the same
+STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR filehandles. If both processes try to access
+them at once, strange things can happen. You may also want to close
+or reopen the filehandles for the child. You can get around this by
+opening your pipe with open(), but on some systems this means that the
+child process cannot outlive the parent.
=head2 Background Processes
=head2 Complete Dissociation of Child from Parent
In some cases (starting server processes, for instance) you'll want to
-complete dissociate the child process from the parent. The following
-process is reported to work on most Unixish systems. Non-Unix users
-should check their Your_OS::Process module for other solutions.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-Open /dev/tty and use the TIOCNOTTY ioctl on it. See L<tty(4)>
-for details.
-
-=item *
-
-Change directory to /
-
-=item *
-
-Reopen STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR so they're not connected to the old
-tty.
-
-=item *
-
-Background yourself like this:
+completely dissociate the child process from the parent. This is
+often called daemonization. A well behaved daemon will also chdir()
+to the root directory (so it doesn't prevent unmounting the filesystem
+containing the directory from which it was launched) and redirect its
+standard file descriptors from and to F</dev/null> (so that random
+output doesn't wind up on the user's terminal).
+
+ use POSIX 'setsid';
+
+ sub daemonize {
+ chdir '/' or die "Can't chdir to /: $!";
+ open STDIN, '/dev/null' or die "Can't read /dev/null: $!";
+ open STDOUT, '>/dev/null'
+ or die "Can't write to /dev/null: $!";
+ defined(my $pid = fork) or die "Can't fork: $!";
+ exit if $pid;
+ setsid or die "Can't start a new session: $!";
+ open STDERR, '>&STDOUT' or die "Can't dup stdout: $!";
+ }
- fork && exit;
+The fork() has to come before the setsid() to ensure that you aren't a
+process group leader (the setsid() will fail if you are). If your
+system doesn't have the setsid() function, open F</dev/tty> and use the
+C<TIOCNOTTY> ioctl() on it instead. See L<tty(4)> for details.
-=back
+Non-Unix users should check their Your_OS::Process module for other
+solutions.
=head2 Safe Pipe Opens
open(PROG_FOR_READING_AND_WRITING, "| some program |")
-and if you forget to use the B<-w> flag, then you'll miss out
-entirely on the diagnostic message:
+and if you forget to use the C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w> flag,
+then you'll miss out entirely on the diagnostic message:
Can't do bidirectional pipe at -e line 1.
operations.
If you look at its source, you'll see that open2() uses low-level
-primitives like Unix pipe() and exec() to create all the connections.
+primitives like Unix pipe() and exec() calls to create all the connections.
While it might have been slightly more efficient by using socketpair(), it
would have then been even less portable than it already is. The open2()
and open3() functions are unlikely to work anywhere except on a Unix
use FileHandle;
use IPC::Open2;
- $pid = open2( \*Reader, \*Writer, "cat -u -n" );
- Writer->autoflush(); # default here, actually
+ $pid = open2(*Reader, *Writer, "cat -u -n" );
print Writer "stuff\n";
$got = <Reader>;
successor F<IPC::Chat>) at your nearest CPAN archive as detailed
in the SEE ALSO section below.
+The newer Expect.pm module from CPAN also addresses this kind of thing.
+This module requires two other modules from CPAN: IO::Pty and IO::Stty.
+It sets up a pseudo-terminal to interact with programs that insist on
+using talking to the terminal device driver. If your system is
+amongst those supported, this may be your best bet.
+
+=head2 Bidirectional Communication with Yourself
+
+If you want, you may make low-level pipe() and fork()
+to stitch this together by hand. This example only
+talks to itself, but you could reopen the appropriate
+handles to STDIN and STDOUT and call other processes.
+
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ # pipe1 - bidirectional communication using two pipe pairs
+ # designed for the socketpair-challenged
+ use IO::Handle; # thousands of lines just for autoflush :-(
+ pipe(PARENT_RDR, CHILD_WTR); # XXX: failure?
+ pipe(CHILD_RDR, PARENT_WTR); # XXX: failure?
+ CHILD_WTR->autoflush(1);
+ PARENT_WTR->autoflush(1);
+
+ if ($pid = fork) {
+ close PARENT_RDR; close PARENT_WTR;
+ print CHILD_WTR "Parent Pid $$ is sending this\n";
+ chomp($line = <CHILD_RDR>);
+ print "Parent Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
+ close CHILD_RDR; close CHILD_WTR;
+ waitpid($pid,0);
+ } else {
+ die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
+ close CHILD_RDR; close CHILD_WTR;
+ chomp($line = <PARENT_RDR>);
+ print "Child Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
+ print PARENT_WTR "Child Pid $$ is sending this\n";
+ close PARENT_RDR; close PARENT_WTR;
+ exit;
+ }
+
+But you don't actually have to make two pipe calls. If you
+have the socketpair() system call, it will do this all for you.
+
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ # pipe2 - bidirectional communication using socketpair
+ # "the best ones always go both ways"
+
+ use Socket;
+ use IO::Handle; # thousands of lines just for autoflush :-(
+ # We say AF_UNIX because although *_LOCAL is the
+ # POSIX 1003.1g form of the constant, many machines
+ # still don't have it.
+ socketpair(CHILD, PARENT, AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, PF_UNSPEC)
+ or die "socketpair: $!";
+
+ CHILD->autoflush(1);
+ PARENT->autoflush(1);
+
+ if ($pid = fork) {
+ close PARENT;
+ print CHILD "Parent Pid $$ is sending this\n";
+ chomp($line = <CHILD>);
+ print "Parent Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
+ close CHILD;
+ waitpid($pid,0);
+ } else {
+ die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
+ close CHILD;
+ chomp($line = <PARENT>);
+ print "Child Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
+ print PARENT "Child Pid $$ is sending this\n";
+ close PARENT;
+ exit;
+ }
+
=head1 Sockets: Client/Server Communication
While not limited to Unix-derived operating systems (e.g., WinSock on PCs
messages and responses that end with a period on an empty line
("\n.\n" terminates a message/response).
+=head2 Internet Line Terminators
+
+The Internet line terminator is "\015\012". Under ASCII variants of
+Unix, that could usually be written as "\r\n", but under other systems,
+"\r\n" might at times be "\015\015\012", "\012\012\015", or something
+completely different. The standards specify writing "\015\012" to be
+conformant (be strict in what you provide), but they also recommend
+accepting a lone "\012" on input (but be lenient in what you require).
+We haven't always been very good about that in the code in this manpage,
+but unless you're on a Mac, you'll probably be ok.
+
=head2 Internet TCP Clients and Servers
Use Internet-domain sockets when you want to do client-server
Here's a sample TCP client using Internet-domain sockets:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
- require 5.002;
use strict;
use Socket;
my ($remote,$port, $iaddr, $paddr, $proto, $line);
instead.
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
- require 5.002;
use strict;
BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' }
use Socket;
use Carp;
+ my $EOL = "\015\012";
sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" }
my $port = shift || 2345;
my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
- $port = $1 if $port =~ /(\d+)/; # untaint port number
+
+ ($port) = $port =~ /^(\d+)$/ or die "invalid port";
socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
setsockopt(Server, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR,
at port $port";
print Client "Hello there, $name, it's now ",
- scalar localtime, "\n";
+ scalar localtime, $EOL;
}
And here's a multithreaded version. It's multithreaded in that
go back to service a new client.
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
- require 5.002;
use strict;
BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' }
use Socket;
use Carp;
+ my $EOL = "\015\012";
sub spawn; # forward declaration
sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" }
my $port = shift || 2345;
my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
- $port = $1 if $port =~ /(\d+)/; # untaint port number
+
+ ($port) = $port =~ /^(\d+)$/ or die "invalid port";
socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
setsockopt(Server, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR,
my $waitedpid = 0;
my $paddr;
+ use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";
sub REAPER {
- $waitedpid = wait;
+ my $child;
+ while (($waitedpid = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) {
+ logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : '');
+ }
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # loathe sysV
- logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : '');
}
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
at port $port";
spawn sub {
- print "Hello there, $name, it's now ", scalar localtime, "\n";
- exec '/usr/games/fortune'
+ $|=1;
+ print "Hello there, $name, it's now ", scalar localtime, $EOL;
+ exec '/usr/games/fortune' # XXX: `wrong' line terminators
or confess "can't exec fortune: $!";
};
differ from the system on which it's being run:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
- require 5.002;
use strict;
use Socket;
used internally to implement pipes. Unlike Internet domain sockets, Unix
domain sockets can show up in the file system with an ls(1) listing.
- $ ls -l /dev/log
+ % ls -l /dev/log
srw-rw-rw- 1 root 0 Oct 31 07:23 /dev/log
You can test for these with Perl's B<-S> file test:
unless ( -S '/dev/log' ) {
- die "something's wicked with the print system";
+ die "something's wicked with the log system";
}
Here's a sample Unix-domain client:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
- require 5.002;
use Socket;
use strict;
my ($rendezvous, $line);
}
exit;
-And here's a corresponding server.
+And here's a corresponding server. You don't have to worry about silly
+network terminators here because Unix domain sockets are guaranteed
+to be on the localhost, and thus everything works right.
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
- require 5.002;
use strict;
use Socket;
use Carp;
BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' }
+ sub spawn; # forward declaration
+ sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" }
my $NAME = '/tmp/catsock';
my $uaddr = sockaddr_un($NAME);
logmsg "server started on $NAME";
+ my $waitedpid;
+
+ use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";
+ sub REAPER {
+ my $child;
+ while (($waitedpid = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) {
+ logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : '');
+ }
+ $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # loathe sysV
+ }
+
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
+
for ( $waitedpid = 0;
accept(Client,Server) || $waitedpid;
$waitedpid = 0, close Client)
};
}
+ sub spawn {
+ my $coderef = shift;
+
+ unless (@_ == 0 && $coderef && ref($coderef) eq 'CODE') {
+ confess "usage: spawn CODEREF";
+ }
+
+ my $pid;
+ if (!defined($pid = fork)) {
+ logmsg "cannot fork: $!";
+ return;
+ } elsif ($pid) {
+ logmsg "begat $pid";
+ return; # I'm the parent
+ }
+ # else I'm the child -- go spawn
+
+ open(STDIN, "<&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdin";
+ open(STDOUT, ">&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdout";
+ ## open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT") || die "can't dup stdout to stderr";
+ exit &$coderef();
+ }
+
As you see, it's remarkably similar to the Internet domain TCP server, so
much so, in fact, that we've omitted several duplicate functions--spawn(),
logmsg(), ctime(), and REAPER()--which are exactly the same as in the
IO::Socket module provides an object-oriented approach. IO::Socket is
included as part of the standard Perl distribution as of the 5.004
release. If you're running an earlier version of Perl, just fetch
-IO::Socket from CPAN, where you'll also find find modules providing easy
+IO::Socket from CPAN, where you'll also find modules providing easy
interfaces to the following systems: DNS, FTP, Ident (RFC 931), NIS and
NISPlus, NNTP, Ping, POP3, SMTP, SNMP, SSLeay, Telnet, and Time--just
to name a few.
Here are what those parameters to the C<new> constructor mean:
-=over
+=over 4
=item C<Proto>
use IO::Socket;
unless (@ARGV > 1) { die "usage: $0 host document ..." }
$host = shift(@ARGV);
+ $EOL = "\015\012";
+ $BLANK = $EOL x 2;
foreach $document ( @ARGV ) {
$remote = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => "tcp",
PeerAddr => $host,
);
unless ($remote) { die "cannot connect to http daemon on $host" }
$remote->autoflush(1);
- print $remote "GET $document HTTP/1.0\n\n";
+ print $remote "GET $document HTTP/1.0" . $BLANK;
while ( <$remote> ) { print }
close $remote;
}
The web server handing the "http" service, which is assumed to be at
-its standard port, number 80. If your the web server you're trying to
+its standard port, number 80. If the web server you're trying to
connect to is at a different port (like 1080 or 8080), you should specify
-as the named-parameter pair, C<
PeerPort =E<gt> 8080>. The C<autoflush>
+as the named-parameter pair, C<
< PeerPort => 8080 >>. The C<autoflush>
method is used on the socket because otherwise the system would buffer
up the output we sent it. (If you're on a Mac, you'll also need to
change every C<"\n"> in your code that sends data over the network to
Here's an example of running that program, which we'll call I<webget>:
- shell_prompt$ webget www.perl.com /guanaco.html
+ % webget www.perl.com /guanaco.html
HTTP/1.1 404 File Not Found
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 18:02:32 GMT
Server: Apache/1.2b6
To accomplish the same thing using just one process would be I<much>
harder, because it's easier to code two processes to do one thing than it
is to code one process to do two things. (This keep-it-simple principle
-is one of the cornerstones of the Unix philosophy, and good software
-engineering as well, which is probably why it's spread to other systems
-as well.)
+a cornerstones of the Unix philosophy, and good software engineering as
+well, which is probably why it's spread to other systems.)
Here's the code:
=head1 TCP Servers with IO::Socket
-Setting up server is little bit more involved than running a client.
+As always, setting up a server is little bit more involved than running a client.
The model is that the server creates a special kind of socket that
does nothing but listen on a particular port for incoming connections.
-It does this by calling the C<IO::Socket::INET-E<gt>new()> method with
+It does this by calling the C<< IO::Socket::INET->new() >> method with
slightly different arguments than the client did.
-=over
+=over 4
=item Proto
superuser.) In our sample, we'll use port 9000, but you can use
any port that's not currently in use on your system. If you try
to use one already in used, you'll get an "Address already in use"
-message. Under Unix, the C<netstat -a> command will show
+message. Under Unix, the C<netstat -a> command will show
which services current have servers.
=item Listen
Once the generic server socket has been created using the parameters
listed above, the server then waits for a new client to connect
-to it. The server blocks in the C<accept> method, which eventually an
-bidirectional connection to the remote client. (Make sure to autoflush
+to it. The server blocks in the C<accept> method, which eventually accepts a
+bidirectional connection from the remote client. (Make sure to autoflush
this handle to circumvent buffering.)
To add to user-friendliness, our server prompts the user for commands.
This server accepts one of five different commands, sending output
back to the client. Note that unlike most network servers, this one
only handles one incoming client at a time. Multithreaded servers are
-covered in Chapter 6 of the Camel as well as later in this manpage.
+covered in Chapter 6 of the Camel.
Here's the code. We'll
into your message system, then you probably should use just TCP to start
with.
+Note that UDP datagrams are I<not> a bytestream and should not be treated
+as such. This makes using I/O mechanisms with internal buffering
+like stdio (i.e. print() and friends) especially cumbersome. Use syswrite(),
+or better send(), like in the example below.
+
Here's a UDP program similar to the sample Internet TCP client given
earlier. However, instead of checking one host at a time, the UDP version
will check many of them asynchronously by simulating a multicast and then
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
- require 5.002;
use Socket;
use Sys::Hostname;
$count--;
}
+Note that this example does not include any retries and may consequently
+fail to contact a reachable host. The most prominent reason for this
+is congestion of the queues on the sending host if the number of
+list of hosts to contact is sufficiently large.
+
=head1 SysV IPC
While System V IPC isn't so widely used as sockets, it still has some
Here's a small example showing shared memory usage.
- $IPC_PRIVATE = 0;
- $IPC_RMID = 0;
+ use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_PRIVATE IPC_RMID S_IRWXU);
+
$size = 2000;
- $key = shmget($IPC_PRIVATE, $size , 0777 );
- die unless defined $key;
+ $id = shmget(IPC_PRIVATE, $size, S_IRWXU) || die "$!";
+ print "shm key $id\n";
$message = "Message #1";
- shmwrite($key, $message, 0, 60 ) || die "$!";
- shmread($key,$buff,0,60) || die "$!";
+ shmwrite($id, $message, 0, 60) || die "$!";
+ print "wrote: '$message'\n";
+ shmread($id, $buff, 0, 60) || die "$!";
+ print "read : '$buff'\n";
- print $buff,"\n";
+ # the buffer of shmread is zero-character end-padded.
+ substr($buff, index($buff, "\0")) = '';
+ print "un" unless $buff eq $message;
+ print "swell\n";
- print "deleting $key\n";
- shmctl($key ,$IPC_RMID, 0) || die "$!";
+ print "deleting shm $id\n";
+ shmctl($id, IPC_RMID, 0) || die "$!";
Here's an example of a semaphore:
+ use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_CREAT);
+
$IPC_KEY = 1234;
- $IPC_RMID = 0;
- $IPC_CREATE = 0001000;
- $key = semget($IPC_KEY, $nsems , 0666 | $IPC_CREATE );
- die if !defined($key);
- print "$key\n";
+ $id = semget($IPC_KEY, 10, 0666 | IPC_CREAT ) || die "$!";
+ print "shm key $id\n";
Put this code in a separate file to be run in more than one process.
Call the file F<take>:
# create a semaphore
$IPC_KEY = 1234;
- $key = semget($IPC_KEY, 0 , 0 );
- die if !defined($key);
+ $id = semget($IPC_KEY, 0 , 0 );
+ die if !defined($id);
$semnum = 0;
$semflag = 0;
# 'take' semaphore
# wait for semaphore to be zero
$semop = 0;
- $opstring1 = pack("sss", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
+ $opstring1 = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
# Increment the semaphore count
$semop = 1;
- $opstring2 = pack("sss", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
+ $opstring2 = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
$opstring = $opstring1 . $opstring2;
- semop($key,$opstring) || die "$!";
+ semop($id,$opstring) || die "$!";
Put this code in a separate file to be run in more than one process.
Call this file F<give>:
# that the second process continues
$IPC_KEY = 1234;
- $key = semget($IPC_KEY, 0, 0);
- die if !defined($key);
+ $id = semget($IPC_KEY, 0, 0);
+ die if !defined($id);
$semnum = 0;
$semflag = 0;
# Decrement the semaphore count
$semop = -1;
- $opstring = pack("sss", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
+ $opstring = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
- semop($key,$opstring) || die "$!";
+ semop($id,$opstring) || die "$!";
The SysV IPC code above was written long ago, and it's definitely
-clunky looking. It should at the very least be made to C<use strict>
-and C<require "sys/ipc.ph">. Better yet, check out the IPC::SysV modules
-on CPAN.
+clunky looking. For a more modern look, see the IPC::SysV module
+which is included with Perl starting from Perl 5.005.
+
+A small example demonstrating SysV message queues:
+
+ use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_PRIVATE IPC_RMID IPC_CREAT S_IRWXU);
+
+ my $id = msgget(IPC_PRIVATE, IPC_CREAT | S_IRWXU);
+
+ my $sent = "message";
+ my $type = 1234;
+ my $rcvd;
+ my $type_rcvd;
+
+ if (defined $id) {
+ if (msgsnd($id, pack("l! a*", $type_sent, $sent), 0)) {
+ if (msgrcv($id, $rcvd, 60, 0, 0)) {
+ ($type_rcvd, $rcvd) = unpack("l! a*", $rcvd);
+ if ($rcvd eq $sent) {
+ print "okay\n";
+ } else {
+ print "not okay\n";
+ }
+ } else {
+ die "# msgrcv failed\n";
+ }
+ } else {
+ die "# msgsnd failed\n";
+ }
+ msgctl($id, IPC_RMID, 0) || die "# msgctl failed: $!\n";
+ } else {
+ die "# msgget failed\n";
+ }
=head1 NOTES
-If you are running under version 5.000 (dubious) or 5.001, you can still
-use most of the examples in this document. You may have to remove the
-C<use strict> and some of the my() statements for 5.000, and for both
-you'll have to load in version 1.2 or older of the F<Socket.pm> module, which
-is included in I<perl5.002>.
-
-Most of these routines quietly but politely return C<undef> when they fail
-instead of causing your program to die right then and there due to an
-uncaught exception. (Actually, some of the new I<Socket> conversion
-functions croak() on bad arguments.) It is therefore essential
-that you should check the return values of these functions. Always begin
-your socket programs this way for optimal success, and don't forget to add
-B<-T> taint checking flag to the pound-bang line for servers:
+Most of these routines quietly but politely return C<undef> when they
+fail instead of causing your program to die right then and there due to
+an uncaught exception. (Actually, some of the new I<Socket> conversion
+functions croak() on bad arguments.) It is therefore essential to
+check return values from these functions. Always begin your socket
+programs this way for optimal success, and don't forget to add B<-T>
+taint checking flag to the #! line for servers:
- #!/usr/bin/perl -w
- require 5.002;
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
use strict;
use sigtrap;
use Socket;
try to pass open file descriptors over a local UDP datagram socket if you
want your code to stand a chance of being portable.
-Because few vendors provide C libraries that are safely re-entrant,
-the prudent programmer will do little else within a handler beyond
-setting a numeric variable that already exists; or, if locked into
-a slow (restarting) system call, using die() to raise an exception
-and longjmp(3) out. In fact, even these may in some cases cause a
-core dump. It's probably best to avoid signals except where they are
-absolutely inevitable. This perilous problems will be addressed in a
-future release of Perl.
+As mentioned in the signals section, because few vendors provide C
+libraries that are safely re-entrant, the prudent programmer will do
+little else within a handler beyond setting a numeric variable that
+already exists; or, if locked into a slow (restarting) system call,
+using die() to raise an exception and longjmp(3) out. In fact, even
+these may in some cases cause a core dump. It's probably best to avoid
+signals except where they are absolutely inevitable. This
+will be addressed in a future release of Perl.
=head1 AUTHOR
There's a lot more to networking than this, but this should get you
started.
-For intrepid programmers, the classic textbook I<Unix Network Programming>
-by Richard Stevens (published by Addison-Wesley). Note that most books
-on networking address networking from the perspective of a C programmer;
-translation to Perl is left as an exercise for the reader.
+For intrepid programmers, the indispensable textbook is I<Unix Network
+Programming> by W. Richard Stevens (published by Addison-Wesley). Note
+that most books on networking address networking from the perspective of
+a C programmer; translation to Perl is left as an exercise for the reader.
The IO::Socket(3) manpage describes the object library, and the Socket(3)
manpage describes the low-level interface to sockets. Besides the obvious
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff