libactor – a C library based on the Actor model
Recently I’ve been really interested in functional, concurrent programming languages, such as Erlang. This prompted me to have some fun in C, and try to implement a simple library that is based on the Actor Model.
Right now it is usable, although it may not be ready for production. It uses pthreads and the library handles all of the threading issues, so you don’t have to worry about any of it at all.
In a future version I plan to add more sandboxing to the actors, so that when one actor crashes, they don’t all go down!
Right now it supports the following:
- Spawn actor
- Sending messages
- Broadcast message
- Actor memory management convenience functions(when an actor dies, the memory is freed!)
Here is what a simple ping/pong example looks like:
#include <stdio.h> #include <libactor/actor.h> void *pong_func(void *args) { actor_msg_t *msg; while(1) { msg = actor_receive(); if(msg->type == PING_MSG) { printf("PING! "); actor_reply_msg(msg, PONG_MSG, NULL, 0); } arelease(msg); } } void *ping_func(void *args) { actor_msg_t *msg; actor_id aid = spawn_actor(pong_func, NULL); while(1) { actor_send_msg(aid, PING_MSG, NULL, 0); msg = actor_receive(); if(msg->type == PONG_MSG) printf("PONG!\n"); arelease(msg); sleep(5); } } void *main_func(void *args) { struct actor_main *main = (struct actor_main*)args; int x; /* Accessing the arguments passed to the application */ printf("Number of arguments: %d\n", main->argc); for(x = 0; x < main->argc; x++) printf("Argument: %s\n", main->argv[x]); /* PING/PONG example */ spawn_actor(ping_func, NULL); } DECLARE_ACTOR_MAIN(main_func)
There is a more detailed example in the source distribution, located in the examples/ directory.
You can get the source here. Please, let me know what you think about it, it was really fun to write!
Documentation is available here: http://chrismoos.com/libactordocs/
Have you looked at http://swtch.com/libtask/ ? It’s a port of plan 9’s libthread.
Looks interesting, I’ll have to play around with it.
Very cool! I’ve been dabbling in Java and Scala actors. Nice to see a C port.
libactor, a c library based on the actor model: http://bit.ly/3ad49w
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@jasoncwarner erlang actors + C = http://bit.ly/3ad49w
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libactor, a C library based on the actor model: http://bit.ly/3ad49w (via @xoclipse ) #opensource #linux
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libactor http://bit.ly/3ad49w
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checkout [libslack](http://libslack.org)
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"Enjoying" is maybe a little harsh.
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ew macros.
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Interesting. Perhaps a more down-to-earth example could persuade those who don’t have experience with the actor pattern, such as myself.
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Joel already said that is impossible for humans.
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… so? They seem to be used nicely here.
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Should the receiver free the received message?
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See also libthread on plan9: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/libthread/example.c
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The receiver owns the message, and should release it. But, if they don’t, when the actor exits the library cleans up the memory.
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Yeah..in retrospect I don’t know why I did that, it seemed nice at the time. Its just a void *(void*) #define ACTOR_FUNCTION(name, args) void *(name)(void *args)
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It’s [ported](http://swtch.com/libtask/) to Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, and Solaris.
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C pre-processor macros are useful if you’re careful with them. I don’t get why you would say "ew" to them other than for the fact they’re not like Lisp macros
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Some of us would say ew to Lisp macros
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My bad. I’ve done so much c++ I forget how useful and necessary they are in C.
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cool! an Actor model implemented in C. http://tr.im/DETZ
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chris moos’s blog » Blog Archive » libactor – a C library based on the Actor model http://tinyurl.com/yhltv6r
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