vwait - Process events until a variable is written
vwait varName
vwait(1t) Tcl Built-In Commands vwait(1t)
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NAME
vwait - Process events until a variable is written
SYNOPSIS
vwait varName
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DESCRIPTION
This command enters the Tcl event loop to process events, blocking the
application if no events are ready. It continues processing events
until some event handler sets the value of the global variable varName.
Once varName has been set, the vwait command will return as soon as the
event handler that modified varName completes. The varName argument is
always interpreted as a variable name with respect to the global names-
pace, but can refer to any namespace's variables if the fully-qualified
name is given.
In some cases the vwait command may not return immediately after var-
Name is set. This happens if the event handler that sets varName does
not complete immediately. For example, if an event handler sets var-
Name and then itself calls vwait to wait for a different variable, then
it may not return for a long time. During this time the top-level
vwait is blocked waiting for the event handler to complete, so it can-
not return either. (See the NESTED VWAITS BY EXAMPLE below.)
To be clear, multiple vwait calls will nest and will not happen in par-
allel. The outermost call to vwait will not return until all the inner
ones do. It is recommended that code should never nest vwait calls (by
avoiding putting them in event callbacks) but when that is not possi-
ble, care should be taken to add interlock variables to the code to
prevent all reentrant calls to vwait that are not strictly necessary.
Be aware that the synchronous modes of operation of some Tcl packages
(e.g., http) use vwait internally; if using the event loop, it is best
to use the asynchronous callback-based modes of operation of those
packages where available.
EXAMPLES
Run the event-loop continually until some event calls exit. (You can
use any variable not mentioned elsewhere, but the name forever reminds
you at a glance of the intent.)
vwait forever
Wait five seconds for a connection to a server socket, otherwise close
the socket and continue running the script:
# Initialise the state
after 5000 set state timeout
set server [socket -server accept 12345]
proc accept {args} {
global state connectionInfo
set state accepted
set connectionInfo $args
}
# Wait for something to happen
vwait state
# Clean up events that could have happened
close $server
after cancel set state timeout
# Do something based on how the vwait finished...
switch $state {
timeout {
puts "no connection on port 12345"
}
accepted {
puts "connection: $connectionInfo"
puts [lindex $connectionInfo 0] "Hello there!"
}
}
A command that will wait for some time delay by waiting for a namespace
variable to be set. Includes an interlock to prevent nested waits.
namespace eval example {
variable v done
proc wait {delay} {
variable v
if {$v ne "waiting"} {
set v waiting
after $delay [namespace code {set v done}]
vwait [namespace which -variable v]
}
return $v
}
}
When running inside a coroutine, an alternative to using vwait is to
yield to an outer event loop and to get recommenced when the variable
is set, or at an idle moment after that.
coroutine task apply {{} {
# simulate [after 1000]
after 1000 [info coroutine]
yield
# schedule the setting of a global variable, as normal
after 2000 {set var 1}
# simulate [vwait var]
proc updatedVar {task args} {
after idle $task
trace remove variable ::var write "updatedVar $task"
}
trace add variable ::var write "updatedVar [info coroutine]"
yield
}}
NESTED VWAITS BY EXAMPLE
This example demonstrates what can happen when the vwait command is
nested. The script will never finish because the waiting for the a
variable never finishes; that vwait command is still waiting for a
script scheduled with after to complete, which just happens to be run-
ning an inner vwait (for b) even though the event that the outer vwait
was waiting for (the setting of a) has occurred.
after 500 {
puts "waiting for b"
vwait b
puts "b was set"
}
after 1000 {
puts "setting a"
set a 10
}
puts "waiting for a"
vwait a
puts "a was set"
puts "setting b"
set b 42
If you run the above code, you get this output:
waiting for a
waiting for b
setting a
The script will never print "a was set" until after it has printed "b
was set" because of the nesting of vwait commands, and yet b will not
be set until after the outer vwait returns, so the script has dead-
locked. The only ways to avoid this are to either structure the over-
all program in continuation-passing style or to use coroutine to make
the continuations implicit. The first of these options would be written
as:
after 500 {
puts "waiting for b"
trace add variable b write {apply {args {
global a b
trace remove variable ::b write \
[lrange [info level 0] 0 1]
puts "b was set"
set ::done ok
}}}
}
after 1000 {
puts "setting a"
set a 10
}
puts "waiting for a"
trace add variable a write {apply {args {
global a b
trace remove variable a write [lrange [info level 0] 0 1]
puts "a was set"
puts "setting b"
set b 42
}}}
vwait done
The second option, with coroutine and some helper procedures, is done
like this:
# A coroutine-based wait-for-variable command
proc waitvar globalVar {
trace add variable ::$globalVar write \
[list apply {{v c args} {
trace remove variable $v write \
[lrange [info level 0] 0 3]
after 0 $c
}} ::$globalVar [info coroutine]]
yield
}
# A coroutine-based wait-for-some-time command
proc waittime ms {
after $ms [info coroutine]
yield
}
coroutine task-1 eval {
puts "waiting for a"
waitvar a
puts "a was set"
puts "setting b"
set b 42
}
coroutine task-2 eval {
waittime 500
puts "waiting for b"
waitvar b
puts "b was set"
set done ok
}
coroutine task-3 eval {
waittime 1000
puts "setting a"
set a 10
}
vwait done
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | runtime/tcl-8 |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
SEE ALSO
global(n), update(n)
KEYWORDS
asynchronous I/O, event, variable, wait
NOTES
Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
code-downloads.html.
This software was built from source available at
https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community
source was downloaded from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tcl/tcl-
core8.6.7-src.tar.gz.
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at https://www.tcl.tk/.
Tcl 8.0 vwait(1t)