10.2.1 Events

A synchronizable event (or just event for short) works with the sync procedure to coordinate synchronization among threads. Certain kinds of objects double as events, including ports and threads. Other kinds of objects exist only for their use as events.

At an point in time, an event is either ready for synchronization, or it is not; depending on the kind of event and how it is used by other threads, an event can switch from not ready to ready (or back), at any time. If a thread synchronizes on an event when it is ready, then the event produces a particular synchronization result.

Synchronizing an event may affect the state of the event. For example, when synchronizing a semaphore, then the semaphore’s internal count is decremented, just as with semaphore-wait. For most kinds of events, however (such as a port), synchronizing does not modify the event’s state.

The following act as events in Racket. An extension or embedding application can extend the set of primitive events – in particular, an eventspace in GRacket is an event – and new structure types can generate events (see prop:evt).

• semaphore – a semaphore is ready when semaphore-wait would not block. The synchronization result of semaphore is semaphore itself.

• semaphore-peek – a semaphore-peek event returned by semaphore-peek-evt applied to semaphore is ready exactly when semaphore is ready. The synchronization result of semaphore-peek is semaphore-peek itself.

• channel – a channel returned by make-channel is ready when channel-get would not block. The channel’s result as an event is the same as the channel-get result.

• channel-put – an event returned by channel-put-evt applied to channel is ready when channel-put would not block on channel. The synchronization result of channel-put is channel-put itself.

• input-port – an input port is ready as an event when read-byte would not block. The synchronization result of input-port is input-port itself.

• output-port – an output port is ready when write-bytes-avail would not block or when the port contains buffered characters and write-bytes-avail* can flush part of the buffer (although write-bytes-avail might block). The synchronization result of output-port is output-port itself.

• progress – an event produced by port-progress-evt applied to input-port is ready after any subsequent read from input-port. The synchronization result of progress is progress itself.

• tcp-listener – a TCP listener is ready when tcp-accept would not block. The synchronization result of listener is listener itself.

• thd – a thread is ready when thread-wait would not block. The synchronization result of thread is thread itself.

• thread-dead – an event returned by thread-dead-evt applied to thd is ready when thd has terminated. The synchronization result of thread-dead is thread-dead itself.

• thread-resume – an event returned by thread-resume-evt applied to thd is ready when thd subsequently resumes execution (if it was not already running). The event’s result is thd.

• thread-suspend – an event returned by thread-suspend-evt applied to thd is ready when thd subsequently suspends execution (if it was not already suspended). The event’s result is thd.

• alarm – an event returned by alarm-evt is ready after a particular date and time. The synchronization result of alarm is alarm itself.

• subprocess – a subprocess is ready when subprocess-wait would not block. The synchronization result of subprocess is subprocess itself.

• will-executor – a will executor is ready when will-execute would not block. The synchronization result of will-executor is will-executor itself.

• custodian-box – a custodian box is ready when its custodian is shut down. The synchronization result of custodian-box is custodian-box itself.

• udp – an event returned by udp-send-evt or udp-receive!-evt is ready when a send or receive on the original socket would block, respectively. The synchronization result of udp is udp itself.

• log-receiver – a log receiver as produced by make-log-receiver is ready when a logged message is available. The event’s result is a vector, as described with make-log-receiver.

• choice – an event returned by choice-evt is ready when one or more of the evts supplied to choice-evt are ready. If the choice event is chosen, one of its ready evts is chosen pseudo-randomly, and the result is the chosen evt’s result.

• wrap – an event returned by wrap-evt applied to evt and proc is ready when evt is ready. The event’s result is obtained by a call to proc (with breaks disabled) on the result of evt.

• handle – an event returned by handle-evt applied to evt and proc is ready when evt is ready. The event’s result is obtained by a tail call to proc on the result of evt.

• guard – an event returned by guard-evt applied to thunk generates a new event every time that guard is used with sync (or whenever it is part of a choice event used with sync, etc.); the generated event is the result of calling thunk when the synchronization begins; if thunk returns a non-event, then thunk’s result is replaced with an event that is ready and whose result is guard.

• nack-guard – an event returned by nack-guard-evt applied to proc generates a new event every time that nack-guard is used with sync (or whenever it is part of a choice event used with sync, etc.); the generated event is the result of calling proc with a NACK (“negative acknowledgment”) event when the synchronization begins; if proc returns a non-event, then proc’s result is replaced with an event that is ready and whose result is nack-guard.

  If the event from proc is not ultimately chosen as the unblocked event, then the NACK event supplied to proc becomes ready with a #<void> value. This NACK event becomes ready when the event is abandoned because some other event is chosen, because the synchronizing thread is dead, or because control escaped from the call to sync (even if nack-guard’s proc has not yet returned a value). If the event returned by proc is chosen, then the NACK event never becomes ready.

• poll-guard – an event returned by poll-guard-evt applied to proc generates a new event every time that poll-guard is used with sync (or whenever it is part of a choice event used with sync, etc.); the generated event is the result of calling proc with a boolean: #t if the event will be used for a poll, #f for a blocking synchronization.

  If #t is supplied to proc, if breaks are disabled, if the polling thread is not terminated, and if polling the resulting event produces a result, the event will certainly be chosen for its result.

• struct – a structure whose type has the prop:evt property identifies/generates an event through the property.

• always-evt – a constant event that is always ready. The synchronization result of always-evt is always-evt itself.

• never-evt – a constant event that is never ready.

• idle – an event produced by system-idle-evt is ready when, if this event were replaced by never-evt, no thread in the system would be available to run. In other words, all threads must be suspended or blocked on events with timeouts that have not yet expired. The event’s result is #<void>.

When at least one evt is ready, its synchronization result (often evt itself) is returned. If multiple evts are ready, one of the evts is chosen pseudo-randomly for the result; the current-evt-pseudo-random-generator parameter sets the random-number generator that controls this choice.

If timeout-secs is 0, each evt is checked at least once, so a timeout-secs value of 0 can be used for polling.

See also alarm-evt for an alternative timeout mechanism.

• An event evt: In this case, using the structure as an event is equivalent to using evt.

• A procedure proc of one argument: In this case, the structure is similar to an event generated by guard-evt, except that the would-be guard procedure proc receives the structure as an argument, instead of no arguments.

• An exact, non-negative integer between 0 (inclusive) and the number of non-automatic fields in the structure type (exclusive, not counting supertype fields): The integer identifies a field in the structure, and the field must be designated as immutable. If the field contains an object or an event-generating procedure of one argument, the event or procedure is used as above. Otherwise, the structure acts as an event that is never ready.

Instances of a structure type with the prop:input-port or prop:output-port property are also synchronizable by virtue of being a port. If the structure type has more than one of prop:evt, prop:input-port, and prop:output-port, then the prop:evt value (if any) takes precedence for determing the instance’s behavior as an event, and the prop:input-port property takes precedence over prop:output-port for synchronization.

Examples:

> (define-struct wt (base val)                    #:property prop:evt (struct-field-index base))

> (define sema (make-semaphore))

> (sync/timeout 0 (make-wt sema #f))

#f

> (semaphore-post sema)

> (sync/timeout 0 (make-wt sema #f))

#<semaphore>

> (semaphore-post sema)

> (sync/timeout 0 (make-wt (lambda (self) (wt-val self)) sema))

#<semaphore>

> (semaphore-post sema)

> (define my-wt (make-wt (lambda (self) (wrap-evt                                            (wt-val self)                                            (lambda (x) self)))                            sema))

> (sync/timeout 0 my-wt)

#<wt>

> (sync/timeout 0 my-wt)

#f