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Processes (multitasking)

Author(s): Jose F. Morales.

This library offers predicates to create, communicate, and synchronize with child processes. The child processes are duplicates of the parent process, based on the fork() function from POSIX-compatible operating systems (see man page for a precise description of the non-inherited process attributes).

The child process can execute a given goal (in a clone of the parent process) or start an external program.

Contrary to threads, processes have a separate address space and communication must be performed via inter-process communication mechanisms. This is useful for executing external programs, or implementing coarse-grained parallelism and concurrency.

  • Process creation via fork() is relatively costly. Use only when address separation is necessary. Consider other concurrency primitives otherwise.
  • Channels connected to in-memory terms are transmited via pipes or temporary files (when needed to avoid deadlock problems).
  • Deadlock problems may still appear if the user specifies two or more pipe(_) channels for the same process (data must be send/received concurrently).
  • The current implementation is not protected against Prolog signals (it can leak resources, including zombie processes, if interrupted by signals).
  • Communication is currently only supported via file system, file descriptors, and sockets.
  • Other mechanisms like file locks, semaphores, message queues, shared memory, etc. are not yet implemented.
  • Arguments do not accept wildcards. See predicates in library(glob) for glob expansions (shell wildcard patterns).

Documentation on exports

REGTYPEprocess/1

Usage:

A process handler

    REGTYPEprocess_option/1
    The predicate process_call/3 waits for process completion, throwing an exception if the return code is different than 0. This default exit behaviour can be controlled with the following options:

    status(ReturnCode)
    unifies return code with ReturnCode upon process completion (no exception is thrown, may fail).
    background(Process)
    execute asynchronously in background; most errors (including input/output) are delayed to process_join/1.
    setsid
    call setsid() on the child to create a new session (useful to create daemon processes http://www.netzmafia.de/skripten/unix/linux-daemon-howto.html)

    The process standard input, output, and error file descriptors (streams from the Prolog side) can be bound to several process_channel/1:

    stdin(Channel)
    set channel for standard input
    stdout(Channel)
    set channel for standard output
    stderr(Channel)
    set channel for standard error

    The environment of the process can be modified with the following options:

    cwd(Dir)
    execute command at the Dir directory (does not affect relative path for input/output redirection).
    env(Env)
    modify the specified environment variables.
    noenv(Env)
    unset the specified environment variables.

    Usage:

    Options that control command execution

      REGTYPEprocess_cmd/1

      Usage:

      Command for process_call/3

        REGTYPEprocess_arg/1

        Usage:

        Argument for process_call/3

          PREDICATEprocess_call/3

          Usage:process_call(Cmd,Args,Opts)

          Execute a command in a child process, where Cmd is the executable path. Use path(Exec) for executing a program Exec reachable from the PATH environment variable

          PREDICATEprocess_pid/2

          Usage:process_pid(Process,Pid)

          The POSIX PID of the process Process.

          PREDICATEprocess_is_joined/1

          Usage:process_is_joined(Process)

          The process has already been joined.

          • The following properties should hold at call time:
            (process:process/1)A process handler

          PREDICATEprocess_join/1

          Usage:process_join(Process)

          Wait for completion of process Process.

          • The following properties should hold at call time:
            (process:process/1)A process handler

          PREDICATEprocess_terminate/1

          Usage:process_terminate(Process)

          Sends POSIX signal SIGTERM to the process Process, which asks politely for process termination.

          • The following properties should hold at call time:
            (process:process/1)A process handler

          PREDICATEprocess_kill/1

          Usage:process_kill(Process)

          Sends POSIX signal SIGKILL to the process Process, which forces process termination.

          • The following properties should hold at call time:
            (process:process/1)A process handler

          PREDICATEprocess_send_signal/2

          Usage:process_send_signal(Process,Signal)

          Sends POSIX signal Signal to process Process.

          PREDICATEprocess_fork/2

          Usage:process_fork(Goal,Opts)

          Execute Goal in a forked process.

          • The following properties should hold at call time:
            (basic_props:cgoal/1)Goal is a term which represents a goal, i.e., an atom or a structure.
            (basic_props:list/2)Opts is a list of process_options.
          Meta-predicate with arguments: process_fork(goal,?).

          PREDICATEprocess_pipe/2

          Usage:process_pipe(Cmd,Opts)

          Execute the list Cmds of process_call/3, connecting standard input and output of consecutive processes with pipes.

          Options are passed as follows: input redirection options are applied to the first process; output redirection and status are applied to the last process; the rest of options are applied to all commands. Background execution is not currently supported (see internal documentation for details).

            Documentation on imports

            This module has the following direct dependencies:
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