10.2.4 Buffered Asynchronous Channels

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► | 10 | Concurrency and Parallelism

10.1 | Threads
10.2 | Synchronization
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▼ | 10.2 | Synchronization

10.2.1 | Events
10.2.2 | Channels
10.2.3 | Semaphores
10.2.4 | Buffered Asynchronous Channels

On this page:

async-channel?
make-async-channel
async-channel-get
async-channel-try-get
async-channel-put
async-channel-put-evt

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##### 10.2.4`` Buffered Asynchronous Channels

(require racket/async-channel)

The bindings documented in this section are provided by the racket/async-channel library, not racket/base or racket.

> > > See also Thread Mailboxes.

An asynchronous channel is like a channel, but it buffers values so that a send operation does not wait on a receive operation.

In addition to its use with procedures that are specific to asynchronous channels, an asynchronous channel can be used as a synchronizable event (see Events). An asynchronous channel is ready for synchronization when async-channel-get would not block; the asynchronous channel’s synchronization result is the same as the async-channel-get result.

> procedure (async-channel? v) → boolean?
> v : any/c

Returns #t if v is an asynchronous channel, #f otherwise.

> procedure (make-async-channel [limit]) → async-channel?
> limit : (or/c exact-positive-integer? #f) = #f

Returns an asynchronous channel with a buffer limit of limit items. A get operation blocks when the channel is empty, and a put operation blocks when the channel has limit items already. If limit is #f, the channel buffer has no limit (so a put never blocks).

> procedure (async-channel-get ach) → any/c
> ach : async-channel?

Blocks until at least one value is available in ach, and then returns the first of the values that were put into async-channel.

> procedure (async-channel-try-get ach) → any/c
> ach : async-channel?

If at least one value is immediately available in ach, returns the first of the values that were put into ach. If async-channel is empty, the result is #f.

> procedure (async-channel-put ach v) → void?
> ach : async-channel?
> v : any/c

Puts v into ach, blocking if ach’s buffer is full until space is available.

> procedure (async-channel-put-evt ach v) → evt?
> ach : async-channel?
> v : any/c

Returns a synchronizable event that is ready for synchronization when (async-channel-put ach v) would return a value (i.e., when the channel holds fewer values already than its limit); the synchronization result of a asychronous channel-put event is the asychronous channel-put event itself.

Examples:
> (define (server input-channel output-channel)
> (thread (lambda ()
> (define (get)
> (async-channel-get input-channel))
> (define (put x)
> (async-channel-put output-channel x))
> (define (do-large-computation)
> (sqrt 9))
> (let loop ([data (get)])
> (case data
> [(quit) (void)]
> [(add) (begin
> (put (+ 1 (get)))
> (loop (get)))]
> [(long) (begin
> (put (do-large-computation))
> (loop (get)))])))))
> (define to-server (make-async-channel))
> (define from-server (make-async-channel))
> > (server to-server from-server)
> #<thread>
> > (async-channel? to-server)
> #t
> > (printf "Adding 1 to 4\n")
> Adding 1 to 4
> > (async-channel-put to-server 'add)
> > (async-channel-put to-server 4)
> > (printf "Result is ~a\n" (async-channel-get from-server))
> Result is 5
> > (printf "Ask server to do a long computation\n")
> Ask server to do a long computation
> > (async-channel-put to-server 'long)
> > (printf "I can do other stuff\n")
> I can do other stuff
> > (printf "Ok, computation from server is ~a\n"
> (async-channel-get from-server))
> Ok, computation from server is 3
> > (async-channel-put to-server 'quit)

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