NAME

Object::Remote::Role::Connector::PerlInterpreter - Role for connections to a Perl interpreter

SYNOPSIS

  use Object::Remote;
  my %opts = (
    perl_command => [qw(nice -n 10 perl -)],
    watchdog_timeout => 120, stderr => \*STDERR,
  );
  my $local_connection = Object::Remote->connect('-', %opts);
  my $hostname = Sys::Hostname->can::on($remote, 'hostname');

DESCRIPTION

This is the role that supports connections to a Perl interpreter that is executed in a different process. The new Perl interpreter can be either on the local or a remote machine and is configurable via arguments passed to the constructor.

ARGUMENTS

perl_command

By default the Perl interpreter will be executed as "perl -" but this can be changed by providing an array reference as the value to the perl_command attribute during construction.

stderr

If this value is defined then it will be used as the file handle that receives the output of STDERR from the Perl interpreter process and I/O will be performed by the run loop in a non-blocking way. If the value is undefined then STDERR of the remote process will be connected directly to STDERR of the local process with out the run loop managing I/O. The default value is undefined.

There are a few ways to use this feature. By default the behavior is to form one unified STDERR across all of the Perl interpreters including the local one. For small scale and quick operation this offers a predictable and easy to use way to get at error messages generated anywhere. If the local Perl interpreter crashes then the remote Perl interpreters still have an active STDERR and it is possible to still receive output from them. This is generally a good thing but can cause issues.

When using a file handle as the output for STDERR once the local Perl interpreter is no longer running there is no longer a valid STDERR for the remote interpreters to send data to. This means that it is no longer possible to receive error output from the remote interpreters and that the shell will start to kill off the child processes. Passing a reference to STDERR for the local interpreter (as the SYNOPSIS shows) causes the run loop to manage I/O, one unified STDERR for all Perl interpreters that ends as soon as the local interpreter process does, and the shell will start killing children when the local interpreter exits.

It is also possible to pass in a file handle that has been opened for writing. This would be useful for logging the output of the remote interpreter directly into a dedicated file.

watchdog_timeout

If this value is defined then it will be used as the number of seconds the watchdog will wait for an update before it terminates the Perl interpreter process. The default value is undefined and will not use the watchdog. See "Object::Remote::Watchdog" for more information.

SEE ALSO

"Object::Remote"