Acme::Spork(3)                 User Contributed Perl Documentation                 Acme::Spork(3)



NAME
       Acme::Spork - Perl extension for spork()ing in your script

SYNOPSIS
           use Acme::Spork;
           my $spork_pid = spork(\&long_running_code, @ARGV)
               or die "Could not fork for spork: $!";
           print "Long running code has been started as PID $spork_pid, bye!\n";

DESCRIPTION
       A spork in the plastic sense is a fork combined with a spoon. In programming I've come to
       call a spork() a fork() that does more than just a fork.

       I use it to describe when you want to fork() to run some long running code but immediately
       return to the main program instead of waiting for it.

spork()
       The first argument is a code ref that gets executed and any other args are passed to the
       call to the code ref.

           #!/usr/bin/perl

           use strict;
           use warnings;
           use Acme::Spork;

           print 1;
           spork(
               sub {
                   sleep 5;
                   open my $log_fh, '>>', 'spork.log', or die "spork.log open failed: $!";
                   print {$log_fh} "I am spork hear me spoon\n";
                   close $log_fh;
               },
           ) or die qq{Couldn't fork for spork: $!};
           print 2;

       This prints out "12" immediately and is done running, now if you tail -f spork.log you'll
       see "I am spork hear me spoon\n" get written to it 4 or 5 seconds later by the spork()ed
       process :)

       spork() returns the PID of the spork()ed process so you can keep track of them and do what
       you need with it.

       If it returns false then fork failed so you can:

           if(spork(\&foo)) {
               print "I am spork here me spoon\n";
           }
           else {
               print "Could not fork for spork: $!";
           }
           my $spork_pid = spork(\&foo) or die "Could not fork for for spork: $!";

       %reopen_stdfhs_to

       You can now have spork reopen one or more of STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR.  You define how this
       is handled in the Acme::Spork hash '%reopen_stdfhs_to'

       The key is the STD* handle (any other values are simply ignored).

       The value is an array reference of arguments to open().

       Its always a good idea to local()ize it as well (and specify all 3 handles, otherwise you
       may get soem strange warnings and behavior):

           local %Acme::Spork::reopen_stdfhs_to = (
                STDIN  => [qw(< /dev/null)],
                STDOUT => [qw(> /dev/null)],
                STDERR => [qw(> &STDOUT)],
           );
           spork(...)

       or you can have it set to the value above globally like so:

           use Acme::Spork qw(-reopen_stdfhs);
           ...
           spork(...)

daemonize()
       Since many daemons need to spork a child process when a request is received I've included
       a cheat function to daemonize your script execution.

       Its simply a wrapper for Proc::Daemon::Init.

           use Acme::Spork qw(daemonize);

           # make sure we are the only one running:
           use Unix::Pid '/var/run/this.pid';

           # if so make me a daemon:
           daemonize();

           # and redo the pid_file with the new pid
           Unix::PID->new()->pid_file('/var/run/this.pid')
               or die 'The PID in /var/run/this.pid is still running.';

           # and handle requests as a server:
           while(<$incoming_requests>) {
               my $req_pid = spork(\&handle_request($_));
               if($req_pid) {
                   spork(\&log_request($_), $req_pid)
                       or warn "Could not spork log request $req_pid: $!";
               }
               else {
                   warn "Could not spork request: $!";
               }
           }

daemonize_without_close_on()
       Same as daemonize() except it doesn't get Proc::Daemon::Init()'s POSIX::close done.  Use-
       ful if that happening causes you problems (which it has me...)

EXPORT
       spork() is by default, daemonize() and daemonize_without_close_on() can be.

SEE ALSO
       Proc::Daemon is not used unless you call daemonize().

       Unix::PID is not used at all in this module except the daemonize() example. I figured if
       you were using this module you many be interested in it as well :)

ATTN 
       I'd love to have this registered if you could find it in your heart :)

       <http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/modules/2005-12/msg00154.html>

AUTHOR
       Daniel Muey, <http://drmuey.com/cpan_contact.pl>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
       Copyright (C) 2006 by Daniel Muey

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.6 or, at your option, any later version of
       Perl 5 you may have available.



perl v5.8.8                                 2007-01-17                             Acme::Spork(3)