boost::asio::io_service.post() background thread memory usage - c++

I want to run boost::asio::io_service.run() in a background thread. So when I need it post() func into.
This is main func:
int main(int /*argc*/, char** /*argv*/)
{
std::string message = "hello";
logg = new logger_client(filename,ip,13666);
logg->start();
while (true)
logg->add_string(message);
return 0;
}
And some relevant funcs from logger_client:
std::auto_ptr<boost::asio::io_service::work> work;
logger_client::logger_client(std::string& filename,std::string& ip, uint16_t port) : work(new boost::asio::io_service::work(io_service))
{
}
void logger_client::start()
{
ios_thread = new boost::thread(boost::bind(&io_service.run,&io_service));
}
void print_nothing()
{
printf("%s\n","lie");
}
void logger_client::add_string(std::string& message)
{
io_service.post(boost::bind(print_nothing));
//io_service.post(strand->wrap(boost::bind(&logger_client::add_string_imp,this,message)));
//io_service.run();
}
When i run this, my program eats 2Gb less than a minute. If i remove endless work and change to this:
void logger_client::add_string(std::string& message)
{
io_service.post(boost::bind(print_nothing));
//io_service.post(strand->wrap(boost::bind(&logger_client::add_string_imp,this,message)));
io_service.run();
}
Program works just fine. But I don't want to invoke async operations on this (main) thread. What am i doing wrong?
UPDATE
I added sleep(1sec) in while(true) loop and memory is no longer growing. But this is not a solution. Because if I call run() after post() (i.e. use main thread for processing handles) and even add five more threads with while(true) loops memory is not growing. So why main thread is so much better than newly created? I also tried thread pool for io_service::run - did not help.

io_service.run will exit unless there are pending operations.
Therefore, your ios_thread will exit immediately.
The solution is to use io_service::work.
In addition, endless loop spam like this
while (true)
logg->add_string(message);
is not a good idea, maybe add some sleep(), to slow it down a bit and keep it under control.

Related

Using a ThreadPool inside a loop

I have a service that runs without stopping.
While the software runs I call some GET and POST functions that I don't need to wait a response. Speed is important
Today I am doing like bellow, an simple example:
boost::asio::thread_pool ThreadPool(16);
int main(){
while (WaitForSingleObject(g_ServiceStopEvent, 0) != WAIT_OBJECT_0){
string Event = "test";
boost::asio::post(ThreadPool, [=]() {
sendPOSTEvent(Event);
}
}
ThreadPool.stop();
ThreadPool.join();
}
Is that correct? Or can I have problems? Do I need to clean something inside the loop?

Safely interrupt C++11 blocking operation

I have a std::thread that uses Boost's asio to read from a serial port:
std::atomic<bool> quit(false);
void serialThread()
{
try
{
asio::io_service io;
asio::serial_port port(io);
port.open("COM9"); // Yeay no port enumeration support!
port.set_option(asio::serial_port_base::baud_rate(9600));
while (!quit)
{
asio::streambuf buf;
asio::read_until(port, buf, "\n");
auto it = asio::buffers_begin(buf.data());
string line(it, it + buf.size());
doStuffWithLine(line);
}
}
catch (std::exception e)
{
cout << "Serial thread error: " << e.what() << endl;
}
}
void SetupSignals()
{
// Arrange it so that `quit = true;` happens when Ctrl-C is pressed.
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
SetupSignals();
thread st(serialThread);
st.join();
return 0;
}
When I press Ctrl-C I want to cleanly exit the thread, so that all destructors are called appropriately (some drivers on Windows hate it if you don't close their resources properly).
Unfortunately as you can see, the current code blocks in read_until() so when you press Ctrl-C nothing will happen until a new line of text is received.
One solution is to use polling, something like this:
asio::async_read_until(port, buf, "\n", ...);
while (!quit)
io.poll();
But I'd rather not use polling. It is pretty inelegant. The only solution I can currently see is to have a std::condition_variable quitOrIoFinished that is triggered either when quit is set to true, or when the read finishes. But I didn't write asio so I can't give it a condition variable to wait on.
Is there any clean sane solution? In Go I would just use a select to wait on multiple channels, where one of them is a quit channel. I can't see a similar solution in C++ though.
Use an asio::signal_set to await the INT signal (control-C tends to send interrupt).
When it arrives, simply call cancel() on your IO objects with pending asynchronous operations. They will return with error_code equal to boost::asio::error::operation_aborted.
Now, if you have a io_service::work object, destruct it and the all threads running io_service::run() will return, so you can join them.
Note Take care of synchronizing access to your IO objects (e.g. when you invoke cancel() on them) because these objects are not thread-safe, unlike io_service and strand.

using libev with multiple threads

I want to use libev with multiple threads for the handling of tcp connections. What I want to is:
The main thread listen on incoming connections, accept the
connections and forward the connection to a workerthread.
I have a pool of workerthreads. The number of threads depends on the
number of cpu's. Each worker-thread has an event loop. The worker-thread listen if I can write on the tcp socket or if
somethings available for reading.
I looked into the documentation of libev and I known this can be done with libev, but I can't find any example how I have to do that.
Does someone has an example?
I think that I have to use the ev_loop_new() api, for the worker-threads and for the main thread I have to use the ev_default_loop() ?
Regards
The following code can be extended to multiple threads
//This program is demo for using pthreads with libev.
//Try using Timeout values as large as 1.0 and as small as 0.000001
//and notice the difference in the output
//(c) 2009 debuguo
//(c) 2013 enthusiasticgeek for stack overflow
//Free to distribute and improve the code. Leave credits intact
#include <ev.h>
#include <stdio.h> // for puts
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <pthread.h>
pthread_mutex_t lock;
double timeout = 0.00001;
ev_timer timeout_watcher;
int timeout_count = 0;
ev_async async_watcher;
int async_count = 0;
struct ev_loop* loop2;
void* loop2thread(void* args)
{
printf("Inside loop 2"); // Here one could initiate another timeout watcher
ev_loop(loop2, 0); // similar to the main loop - call it say timeout_cb1
return NULL;
}
static void async_cb (EV_P_ ev_async *w, int revents)
{
//puts ("async ready");
pthread_mutex_lock(&lock); //Don't forget locking
++async_count;
printf("async = %d, timeout = %d \n", async_count, timeout_count);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&lock); //Don't forget unlocking
}
static void timeout_cb (EV_P_ ev_timer *w, int revents) // Timer callback function
{
//puts ("timeout");
if (ev_async_pending(&async_watcher)==false) { //the event has not yet been processed (or even noted) by the event loop? (i.e. Is it serviced? If yes then proceed to)
ev_async_send(loop2, &async_watcher); //Sends/signals/activates the given ev_async watcher, that is, feeds an EV_ASYNC event on the watcher into the event loop.
}
pthread_mutex_lock(&lock); //Don't forget locking
++timeout_count;
pthread_mutex_unlock(&lock); //Don't forget unlocking
w->repeat = timeout;
ev_timer_again(loop, &timeout_watcher); //Start the timer again.
}
int main (int argc, char** argv)
{
if (argc < 2) {
puts("Timeout value missing.\n./demo <timeout>");
return -1;
}
timeout = atof(argv[1]);
struct ev_loop *loop = EV_DEFAULT; //or ev_default_loop (0);
//Initialize pthread
pthread_mutex_init(&lock, NULL);
pthread_t thread;
// This loop sits in the pthread
loop2 = ev_loop_new(0);
//This block is specifically used pre-empting thread (i.e. temporary interruption and suspension of a task, without asking for its cooperation, with the intention to resume that task later.)
//This takes into account thread safety
ev_async_init(&async_watcher, async_cb);
ev_async_start(loop2, &async_watcher);
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, loop2thread, NULL);
ev_timer_init (&timeout_watcher, timeout_cb, timeout, 0.); // Non repeating timer. The timer starts repeating in the timeout callback function
ev_timer_start (loop, &timeout_watcher);
// now wait for events to arrive
ev_loop(loop, 0);
//Wait on threads for execution
pthread_join(thread, NULL);
pthread_mutex_destroy(&lock);
return 0;
}
Using libev within different threads at the same time is fine as long as each of them runs its own loop[1].
The c++ wrapper in libev (ev++.h) always uses the default loop instead of letting you specify which one you want to use. You should use the C header instead (ev.h) which allows you to specify which loop to use (e.g. ev_io_start takes a pointer to an ev_loop but the ev::io::start doesn't).
You can signal another thread's ev_loop safely through ev_async.
[1]http://doc.dvgu.ru/devel/ev.html#threads_and_coroutines

boost::io_service, threads and std::set

If there is something more difficult than debugging a multithreaded app that is trying to describe the bug itself.
I have two boost::threads (application and display).
Both use the same asio::io_service to do their work.
The display thread has a std::set of type window* which is a class I use to wrap winapi window management.
I use a custom message queue to communicate these two threads.
One of these messages (terminate) is used to notify the display thread that it must not "post" any more methods and that it must call thread_group.remove_thread and remove itself.
The thread has a variable (state) that flags the state of the thread (running, paused, terminated).
If it is running it "posts" it's update() method that iterates an std::set and calls the update method in each window* it contains.
If it is terminated, it clears the std::set, removes itself from the thread_group and doesn't post any more work.
The problem: Once a while, when trying to close the app, the thread's update method gets ran after the thread got "terminated" and the std::set got cleared. Then the update method tries to iterate the std::set and a SIGSEGV takes place. This only happens 1 every 10 runs of the application and I'm having a hard time trying to guess what's wrong.
I'll try to post the relevant code, if more is needed I'll try to add it.
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
boost::asio::io_service ios;
boost::asio::strand strand(ios);
boost::thread_group threads;
owl::system::pump pump;
application app(&threads, &strand, &pump);
owl::system::display display(&strand, &pump);
ios.run();
threads.join_all();
return 0;
}
...
void display::on_terminate()
{
close_all_windows();
}
...
void display::close_all_windows()
{
windows.move_first();
while (!windows.eof())
{
window* win = windows.value();
win->destroy();
delete win;
windows.move_next();
}
windows.clear();
check_no_window();
}
...
void display::on_update()
{
if (windows.size())
{
windows.move_first();
while (!windows.eof())
{
windows.value()->update();
windows.move_next(); // Here happens the SIGSEGV
}
}
}
The class display inherits the class subsystem that manages thread execution. This is the relevant code involving the execution of on_update()
void subsystem::do_update()
{
message* msg;
size_t message_count = messages.size();
for (size_t i=0; i<message_count; i++)
{
msg = messages[i];
process_message(msg);
strand->dispatch(strand->wrap(boost::bind(&message::deallocate, msg)));
}
switch (state)
{
case running:
{
on_update();
}
break;
case paused:
{
// Do not update. Just check the queue and sleep
sleep(10);
}
break;
case terminated:
{
do_terminate();
return;
}
break;
}
strand->post(strand->wrap(boost::bind(&subsystem::check_for_messages, this)));
}
void subsystem::check_for_messages()
{
messages.clear();
pump->get_messages(this, messages);
ios->post(boost::bind(&subsystem::do_update, this));
}
The SIGSEGV occurs exactly when trying to increment the std::set iterator.
Child process PID: 2272
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
In std::_Rb_tree_increment(std::_Rb_tree_node_base const*) ()
stl_tree.h:269

gSoap: how to gracefully shutdown the webservice application?

I'm using gSoap to write a webservice. It's running as a console application. In all gSoap examples I see, that requests are dispatched in infinite loop like for(;;;) even in multi-threaded version.
But how can I make my webservice to terminate gracefully when, say, user presses space on the console?
Preferably:
stop accepting new connections;
Serve existing ones;
Exit from application
The only solution I came up so far is using timeouts
soap->recv_timeout = 20;
soap->send_timeout = 20;
soap->connect_timeout = 5;
soap->accept_timeout = 5;
Then all blocking functions return periodically. But this is not ideal for me, because I want to be able to terminate the app quickly even if there is an ongoing transmission, but at the same time, don't want to compromise reliability on a slow/flaky connection (it's an embedded device connected via GPRS).
The section 7.2.4 How to Create a Multi-Threaded Stand-Alone Service in the documentation has example code for writing an accept loop. You need to write your own accept loop and add signal handling so it responds to Ctrl-C.
stop accepting new connections:
Leave the loop so you stop calling accept.
Serve existing ones:
The threads need to inform you when they are finished, so you can exit when the number of active clients is zero. (boost::thead_group has a join_all which does exactly that.)
Exit from application:
What you need to do is register signal handler so when you terminate your application using Ctrl + C, it calls you registered function where you can gracefully terminates.
e.g
class gsoap_test {
public:
void start() {
running_ = true;
while(running_) {
//gsoap threads
}
//stop and cleanup
}
void stop() {
running_ = false;
}
private:
bool running_;
};
//global variable
gsoap_test gsoap;
void sighandler(int sig)
{
std::cout<< "Signal caught..." << std::endl;
//Stop gracefully here
gsoap.stop();
exit(0);
}
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
//register signal
signal(SIGABRT, &sighandler);
signal(SIGTERM, &sighandler);
signal(SIGINT, &sighandler);
gsoap.start();
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}