Joel VanderWerf
11/19/2004 12:40:00 AM
James Edward Gray II wrote:
> I need to code up a server. It could have as many as fifty simultaneous
> users all sending in commands. Those commands need to be processed in
> the order received, and many logged-in users may see changes based on
> the processing of those commands.
>
> I can code all this myself, I'm sure, but I thought I would have a look
> at GServer. It looks to simplify server setup and incoming reads, but
> it doesn't seem to offer any help for output. Am I reading this right?
>
> My plan for handling input is to push all commands onto a thread safe
> queue and have the main event thread pull them off the other end one at
> a time. But let's say that an event affects users A, B, and C. How do
> I notify them all?
>
> Do I cache their sockets when they log in, by name, and then write to
> each of those when the time comes? Those writes would need to be
> threaded I suppose, to avoid blocking the event thread.
>
> I guess mainly what I'm asking is, I need to roll all this output
> handling on top of GServer, if I want to use it, right?
Have you considered, at least for prototyping, using drb, with the
thread-safe queue being the object exposed to clients (i.e.,
DRbUndumped) by drb? The client code would push commands onto this
queue, and the server would pull them off. The command object could
contain a reference to a DRbUndumped object that stays on the client
side. The server calls methods on this object to notify the client.
(Another approach is to use yield: the client provides a block, and the
server yields to it, passing a notification value.)
For 50 clients, this might be less responsive than using GServer, though.