/examples/keepalive/keepalive.erl
Erlang | 81 lines | 33 code | 14 blank | 34 comment | 0 complexity | 9a69f47aa85b971305d40ee1486069d4 MD5 | raw file
Possible License(s): MIT
- -module(keepalive).
- %% your web app can push data to clients using a technique called comet long
- %% polling. browsers make a request and your server waits to send a
- %% response until data is available. see wikipedia for a better explanation:
- %% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_(programming)#Ajax_with_long_polling
- %%
- %% since the majority of your http handlers will be idle at any given moment,
- %% you might consider making them hibernate while they wait for more data from
- %% another process. however, since the execution stack is discarded when a
- %% process hibernates, the handler would usually terminate after your response
- %% code runs. this means http keep alives wouldn't work; the handler process
- %% would terminate after each response and close its socket rather than
- %% returning to the big @mochiweb_http@ loop and processing another request.
- %%
- %% however, if mochiweb exposes a continuation that encapsulates the return to
- %% the top of the big loop in @mochiweb_http@, we can call that after the
- %% response. if you do that then control flow returns to the proper place,
- %% and keep alives work like they would if you hadn't hibernated.
- -export([ start/1, loop/1
- ]).
- %% internal export (so hibernate can reach it)
- -export([ resume/3
- ]).
- -define(LOOP, {?MODULE, loop}).
- start(Options = [{port, _Port}]) ->
- mochiweb_http:start([{name, ?MODULE}, {loop, ?LOOP} | Options]).
- loop(Req) ->
- Path = Req:get(path),
- case string:tokens(Path, "/") of
- ["longpoll" | RestOfPath] ->
- %% the "reentry" is a continuation -- what @mochiweb_http@
- %% needs to do to start its loop back at the top
- Reentry = mochiweb_http:reentry(?LOOP),
- %% here we could send a message to some other process and hope
- %% to get an interesting message back after a while. for
- %% simplicity let's just send ourselves a message after a few
- %% seconds
- erlang:send_after(2000, self(), "honk honk"),
- %% since we expect to wait for a long time before getting a
- %% reply, let's hibernate. memory usage will be minimized, so
- %% we won't be wasting memory just sitting in a @receive@
- proc_lib:hibernate(?MODULE, resume, [Req, RestOfPath, Reentry]),
- %% we'll never reach this point, and this function @loop/1@
- %% won't ever return control to @mochiweb_http@. luckily
- %% @resume/3@ will take care of that.
- io:format("not gonna happen~n", []);
- _ ->
- ok(Req, io_lib:format("some other page: ~p", [Path]))
- end,
- io:format("restarting loop normally in ~p~n", [Path]),
- ok.
- %% this is the function that's called when a message arrives.
- resume(Req, RestOfPath, Reentry) ->
- receive
- Msg ->
- Text = io_lib:format("wake up message: ~p~nrest of path: ~p", [Msg, RestOfPath]),
- ok(Req, Text)
- end,
- %% if we didn't call @Reentry@ here then the function would finish and the
- %% process would exit. calling @Reentry@ takes care of returning control
- %% to @mochiweb_http@
- io:format("reentering loop via continuation in ~p~n", [Req:get(path)]),
- Reentry(Req).
- ok(Req, Response) ->
- Req:ok({_ContentType = "text/plain",
- _Headers = [],
- Response}).