zactor(3)
CZMQ Manual - CZMQ/3.0.1
Name
zactor - simple actor framework
Synopsis
// Actors get a pipe and arguments from caller
typedef void (zactor_fn) (zsock_t *pipe, void *args);
// Create a new actor passing arbitrary arguments reference.
CZMQ_EXPORT zactor_t *
zactor_new (zactor_fn *task, void *args);
// Destroy an actor.
CZMQ_EXPORT void
zactor_destroy (zactor_t **p_self);
// Send a zmsg message to the actor, take ownership of the message
// and destroy when it has been sent.
CZMQ_EXPORT int
zactor_send (zactor_t *self, zmsg_t **msg_p);
// Receive a zmsg message from the actor. Returns NULL if the actor
// was interrupted before the message could be received, or if there
// was a timeout on the actor.
CZMQ_EXPORT zmsg_t *
zactor_recv (zactor_t *self);
// Probe the supplied object, and report if it looks like a zactor_t.
CZMQ_EXPORT bool
zactor_is (void *self);
// Probe the supplied reference. If it looks like a zactor_t instance,
// return the underlying libzmq actor handle; else if it looks like
// a libzmq actor handle, return the supplied value.
CZMQ_EXPORT void *
zactor_resolve (void *self);
// Return the actor's zsock handle. Use this when you absolutely need
// to work with the zsock instance rather than the actor.
CZMQ_EXPORT zsock_t *
zactor_sock (zactor_t *self);
// Self test of this class
CZMQ_EXPORT void
zactor_test (bool verbose);
Description
The zactor class provides a simple actor framework. It replaces the CZMQ zthread class, which had a complex API that did not fit the CLASS standard. A CZMQ actor is implemented as a thread plus a PAIR-PAIR pipe. The constructor and destructor are always synchronized, so the caller can be sure all resources are created, and destroyed, when these calls complete. (This solves a major problem with zthread, that a caller could not be sure when a child thread had finished.)
A zactor_t instance acts like a zsock_t and you can pass it to any CZMQ method that would take a zsock_t argument, including methods in zframe, zmsg, zstr, zpoller, and zloop.
An actor function MUST call zsock_signal (pipe) when initialized and MUST listen to pipe and exit on $TERM command.
Example
From zactor_test method
zactor_t *actor = zactor_new (echo_actor, "Hello, World");
assert (actor);
zstr_sendx (actor, "ECHO", "This is a string", NULL);
char *string = zstr_recv (actor);
assert (streq (string, "This is a string"));
free (string); zactor_destroy (&actor);
See also
Authors
The CZMQ manual was written by Pieter Hintjens<moc.xitami|hp#moc.xitami|hp>.
Resources
Main web site: http://czmq.zeromq.org/
Report bugs to the ØMQ development mailing list: <gro.qmorez.stsil|ved-qmorez#gro.qmorez.stsil|ved-qmorez>
Copyright
Copyright (c) the Contributors as noted in the AUTHORS file. This file is part of CZMQ, the high-level C binding for ØMQ: http://czmq.zeromq.org. This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.