# Proc::Background: Generic interface to background process management.
#
# Copyright (C) 1998-2005 Blair Zajac. All rights reserved.
package Proc::Background;
require 5.004_04;
use strict;
use Exporter;
use Carp;
use Cwd;
use vars qw(@ISA $VERSION @EXPORT_OK);
@ISA = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT_OK = qw(timeout_system);
$VERSION = sprintf '%d.%02d', '$Revision: 1.10 $' =~ /(\d+)\.(\d+)/;
# Determine if the operating system is Windows.
my $is_windows = $^O eq 'MSWin32';
# Set up a regular expression that tests if the path is absolute and
# if it has a directory separator in it. Also create a list of file
# extensions of append to the programs name to look for the real
# executable.
my $is_absolute_re;
my $has_dir_element_re;
my @extensions = ('');
if ($is_windows) {
$is_absolute_re = '^(?:(?:[a-zA-Z]:[\\\\/])|(?:[\\\\/]{2}\w+[\\\\/]))';
$has_dir_element_re = "[\\\\/]";
push(@extensions, '.exe');
} else {
$is_absolute_re = "^/";
$has_dir_element_re = "/";
}
# Make this class a subclass of Proc::Win32 or Proc::Unix. Any
# unresolved method calls will go to either of these classes.
if ($is_windows) {
require Proc::Background::Win32;
unshift(@ISA, 'Proc::Background::Win32');
} else {
require Proc::Background::Unix;
unshift(@ISA, 'Proc::Background::Unix');
}
# Take either a relative or absolute path to a command and make it an
# absolute path.
sub _resolve_path {
my $command = shift;
return unless length $command;
# Make the path to the progam absolute if it isn't already. If the
# path is not absolute and if the path contains a directory element
# separator, then only prepend the current working to it. If the
# path is not absolute, then look through the PATH environment to
# find the executable. In all cases, look for the programs with any
# extensions added to the original path name.
my $path;
if ($command =~ /$is_absolute_re/o) {
foreach my $ext (@extensions) {
my $p = "$command$ext";
if (-f $p and -x _) {
$path = $p;
last;
}
}
unless (defined $path) {
warn "$0: no executable program located at $command\n";
}
} else {
my $cwd = cwd;
if ($command =~ /$has_dir_element_re/o) {
my $p1 = "$cwd/$command";
foreach my $ext (@extensions) {
my $p2 = "$p1$ext";
if (-f $p2 and -x _) {
$path = $p2;
last;
}
}
} else {
foreach my $dir (split($is_windows ? ';' : ':', $ENV{PATH})) {
next unless length $dir;
$dir = "$cwd/$dir" unless $dir =~ /$is_absolute_re/o;
my $p1 = "$dir/$command";
foreach my $ext (@extensions) {
my $p2 = "$p1$ext";
if (-f $p2 and -x _) {
$path = $p2;
last;
}
}
last if defined $path;
}
}
unless (defined $path) {
warn "$0: cannot find absolute location of $command\n";
}
}
$path;
}
# We want the created object to live in Proc::Background instead of
# the OS specific class so that generic method calls can be used.
sub new {
my $class = shift;
my $options;
if (@_ and defined $_[0] and UNIVERSAL::isa($_[0], 'HASH')) {
$options = shift;
}
unless (@_ > 0) {
confess "Proc::Background::new called with insufficient number of arguments";
}
return unless defined $_[0];
my $self = $class->SUPER::_new(@_) or return;
# Save the start time of the class.
$self->{_start_time} = time;
# Handle the specific options.
if ($options) {
$self->{_die_upon_destroy} = $options->{die_upon_destroy};
}
bless $self, $class;
}
sub DESTROY {
my $self = shift;
if ($self->{_die_upon_destroy}) {
$self->die;
}
}
# Reap the child. If the first argument is 0 the wait should return
# immediately, 1 if it should wait forever. If this number is
# non-zero, then wait. If the wait was sucessful, then delete
# $self->{_os_obj} and set $self->{_exit_value} to the OS specific
# class return of _reap. Return 1 if we sucessfully waited, 0
# otherwise.
sub _reap {
my $self = shift;
my $timeout = shift || 0;
return 0 unless exists($self->{_os_obj});
# Try to wait on the process. Use the OS dependent wait call using
# the Proc::Background::*::waitpid call, which returns one of three
# values.
# (0, exit_value) : sucessfully waited on.
# (1, undef) : process already reaped and exist value lost.
# (2, undef) : process still running.
my ($result, $exit_value) = $self->_waitpid($timeout);
if ($result == 0 or $result == 1) {
$self->{_exit_value} = defined($exit_value) ? $exit_value : 0;
delete $self->{_os_obj};
# Save the end time of the class.
$self->{_end_time} = time;
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
sub alive {
my $self = shift;
# If $self->{_os_obj} is not set, then the process is definitely
# not running.
return 0 unless exists($self->{_os_obj});
# If $self->{_exit_value} is set, then the process has already finished.
return 0 if exists($self->{_exit_value});
# Try to reap the child. If it doesn't reap, then it's alive.
!$self->_reap(0);
}
sub wait {
my $self = shift;
# If neither _os_obj or _exit_value are set, then something is wrong.
if (!exists($self->{_exit_value}) and !exists($self->{_os_obj})) {
return;
}
# If $self->{_exit_value} exists, then we already waited.
return $self->{_exit_value} if exists($self->{_exit_value});
# Otherwise, wait forever for the process to finish.
$self->_reap(1);
return $self->{_exit_value};
}
sub die {
my $self = shift;
# See if the process has already died.
return 1 unless $self->alive;
# Kill the process using the OS specific method.
$self->_die;
# See if the process is still alive.
!$self->alive;
}
sub start_time {
$_[0]->{_start_time};
}
sub end_time {
$_[0]->{_end_time};
}
sub pid {
$_[0]->{_pid};
}
sub timeout_system {
unless (@_ > 1) {
confess "$0: timeout_system passed too few arguments.\n";
}
my $timeout = shift;
unless ($timeout =~ /^\d+(?:\.\d*)?$/ or $timeout =~ /^\.\d+$/) {
confess "$0: timeout_system passed a non-positive number first argument.\n";
}
my $proc = Proc::Background->new(@_) or return;
my $end_time = $proc->start_time + $timeout;
while ($proc->alive and time < $end_time) {
sleep(1);
}
my $alive = $proc->alive;
if ($alive) {
$proc->die;
}
if (wantarray) {
return ($proc->wait, $alive);
} else {
return $proc->wait;
}
}
1;
__END__
=pod
=head1 NAME
Proc::Background - Generic interface to Unix and Win32 background process management
=head1 SYNOPSIS
use Proc::Background;
timeout_system($seconds, $command, $arg1);
timeout_system($seconds, "$command $arg1");
my $proc1 = Proc::Background->new($command, $arg1, $arg2);
my $proc2 = Proc::Background->new("$command $arg1 1>&2");
$proc1->alive;
$proc1->die;
$proc1->wait;
my $time1 = $proc1->start_time;
my $time2 = $proc1->end_time;
# Add an option to kill the process with die when the variable is
# DETROYed.
my $opts = {'die_upon_destroy' => 1};
my $proc3 = Proc::Background->new($opts, $command, $arg1, $arg2);
$proc3 = undef;
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This is a generic interface for placing processes in the background on
both Unix and Win32 platforms. This module lets you start, kill, wait
on, retrieve exit values, and see if background processes still exist.
=head1 METHODS
=over 4
=item B<new> [options] I<command>, [I<arg>, [I<arg>, ...]]
=item B<new> [options] 'I<command> [I<arg> [I<arg> ...]]'
This creates a new background process. As exec() or system() may be
passed an array with a single single string element containing a
command to be passed to the shell or an array with more than one
element to be run without calling the shell, B<new> has the same
behavior.
In certain cases B<new> will attempt to find I<command> on the system
and fail if it cannot be found.
For Win32 operating systems:
The Win32::Process module is always used to spawn background
processes on the Win32 platform. This module always takes a
single string argument containing the executable's name and
any option arguments. In addition, it requires that the
absolute path to the executable is also passed to it. If
only a single argument is passed to new, then it is split on
whitespace into an array and the first element of the split
array is used at the executable's name. If multiple
arguments are passed to new, then the first element is used
as the executable's name.
If the executable's name is an absolute path, then new
checks to see if the executable exists in the given location
or fails otherwise. If the executable's name is not
absolute, then the executable is searched for using the PATH
environmental variable. The input executable name is always
replaced with the absolute path determined by this process.
In addition, when searching for the executable, the
executable is searched for using the unchanged executable
name and if that is not found, then it is checked by
appending `.exe' to the name in case the name was passed
without the `.exe' suffix.
Finally, the argument array is placed back into a single
string and passed to Win32::Process::Create.
For non-Win32 operating systems, such as Unix:
If more than one argument is passed to new, then new
assumes that the command will not be passed through the
shell and the first argument is the executable's relative
or absolute path. If the first argument is an absolute
path, then it is checked to see if it exists and can be
run, otherwise new fails. If the path is not absolute,
then the PATH environmental variable is checked to see if
the executable can be found. If the executable cannot be
found, then new fails. These steps are taking to prevent
exec() from failing after an fork() without the caller of
new knowing that something failed.
The first argument to B<new> I<options> may be a reference to a hash
which contains key/value pairs to modify Proc::Background's behavior.
Currently the only key understood by B<new> is I<die_upon_destroy>.
When this value is set to true, then when the Proc::Background object
is being DESTROY'ed for any reason (i.e. the variable goes out of
scope) the process is killed via the die() method.
If anything fails, then new returns an empty list in a list context,
an undefined value in a scalar context, or nothing in a void context.
=item B<pid>
Returns the process ID of the created process. This value is saved
even if the process has already finished.
=item B<alive>
Return 1 if the process is still active, 0 otherwise.
=item B<die>
Reliably try to kill the process. Returns 1 if the process no longer
exists once B<die> has completed, 0 otherwise. This will also return
1 if the process has already died. On Unix, the following signals are
sent to the process in one second intervals until the process dies:
HUP, QUIT, INT, KILL.
=item B<wait>
Wait for the process to exit. Return the exit status of the command
as returned by wait() on the system. To get the actual exit value,
divide by 256 or right bit shift by 8, regardless of the operating
system being used. If the process never existed, then return an empty
list in a list context, an undefined value in a scalar context, or
nothing in a void context. This function may be called multiple times
even after the process has exited and it will return the same exit
status.
=item B<start_time>
Return the value that the Perl function time() returned when the
process was started.
=item B<end_time>
Return the value that the Perl function time() returned when the exit
status was obtained from the process.
=back
=head1 FUNCTIONS
=over 4
=item B<timeout_system> I<timeout>, I<command>, [I<arg>, [I<arg>...]]
=item B<timeout_system> 'I<timeout> I<command> [I<arg> [I<arg>...]]'
Run a command for I<timeout> seconds and if the process did not exit,
then kill it. While the timeout is implemented using sleep(), this
function makes sure that the full I<timeout> is reached before killing
the process. B<timeout_system> does not wait for the complete
I<timeout> number of seconds before checking if the process has
exited. Rather, it sleeps repeatidly for 1 second and checks to see
if the process still exists.
In a scalar context, B<timeout_system> returns the exit status from
the process. In an array context, B<timeout_system> returns a two
element array, where the first element is the exist status from the
process and the second is set to 1 if the process was killed by
B<timeout_system> or 0 if the process exited by itself.
The exit status is the value returned from the wait() call. If the
process was killed, then the return value will include the killing of
it. To get the actual exit value, divide by 256.
If something failed in the creation of the process, the subroutine
returns an empty list in a list context, an undefined value in a
scalar context, or nothing in a void context.
=back
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
I<Proc::Background> comes with two modules, I<Proc::Background::Unix>
and I<Proc::Background::Win32>. Currently, on Unix platforms
I<Proc::Background> uses the I<Proc::Background::Unix> class and on
Win32 platforms it uses I<Proc::Background::Win32>, which makes use of
I<Win32::Process>.
The I<Proc::Background> assigns to @ISA either
I<Proc::Background::Unix> or I<Proc::Background::Win32>, which does
the OS dependent work. The OS independent work is done in
I<Proc::Background>.
Proc::Background uses two variables to keep track of the process.
$self->{_os_obj} contains the operating system object to reference the
process. On a Unix systems this is the process id (pid). On Win32,
it is an object returned from the I<Win32::Process> class. When
$self->{_os_obj} exists, then the process is running. When the
process dies, this is recorded by deleting $self->{_os_obj} and saving
the exit value $self->{_exit_value}.
Anytime I<alive> is called, a waitpid() is called on the process and
the return status, if any, is gathered and saved for a call to
I<wait>. This module does not install a signal handler for SIGCHLD.
If for some reason, the user has installed a signal handler for
SIGCHLD, then, then when this module calls waitpid(), the failure will
be noticed and taken as the exited child, but it won't be able to
gather the exit status. In this case, the exit status will be set to
0.
=head1 SEE ALSO
See also L<Proc::Background::Unix> and L<Proc::Background::Win32>.
=head1 AUTHOR
Blair Zajac <blair@orcaware.com>
=head1 COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1998-2005 Blair Zajac. All rights reserved. This
package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
=cut