Channel I/O: socket, fileevent, vwait

Tcl I/O is based on a the concept of channels. A channel is conceptually similar to a FILE * in C, or a stream in shell programming. The difference is that a channel may be a either a stream device like a file, or a connection oriented construct like a socket.

A stream based channel is created with the open command, as discussed in lesson 26. A socket based channel is created with a socket command. A socket can be opened as either as a client, or as a server.

If a socket channel is opened as a server, then the tcl program will 'listen' on that channel for another task to attempt to connect with it. When this happens, a new channel is created for that link (server-> new client), and the tcl program continues to listen for connections on the original port number. In this way, a single Tcl server could be talking to several clients simultaneously.

When a channel exists, a handler can be defined that will be invoked when the channel is available for reading or writing. This handler is defined with the fileevent command. When a tcl procedure does a gets or puts to a blocking device, and the device isn't ready for I/O, the program will block until the device is ready. This may be a long while if the other end of the I/O channel has gone off line. Using the fileevent command, the program only accesses an I/O channel when it is ready to move data.

Finally, there is a command to wait until an event happens. The vwait command will wait until a variable is set. This can be used to create a semaphore style functionality for the interaction between client and server, and let a controlling procedure know that an event has occurred.

Look at the example, and you'll see the socket command being used as both client and server, and the fileevent and vwait commands being used to control the I/O between the client and server.

Note in particular the flush commands being used. Just as a channel that is opened as a pipe to a command doesn't send data until either a flush is invoked, or a buffer is filled, the socket based channels don't automatically send data.

socket -server command ?options? port

The socket command with the -server flag starts a server socket listing on port port. When a connection occurs on port, the proc command is called with the arguments:

• channel - The channel for the new client
• address - The IP Address of this client
• port The port that is assigned to this client

socket ?options? host port

The socket command without the -server option opens a client connection to the system with IP Address host and port address port. The IP Address may be given as a numeric string, or as a fully qualified domain address.

To connect to the local host, use the address 127.0.0.1 (the loopback address).

fileevent channelID readable ?script?

fileevent channelID writeable ?script?

The fileevent command defines a handler to be invoked when a condition occurs. The conditions are readable, which invokes script when data is ready to be read on channelID, and writeable, when channelID is ready to receive data. Note that end-of-file must be checked for by the script.

vwait varName

The vwait command pauses the execution of a script until some background action sets the value of varName. A background action can be a proc invoked by a fileevent, or a socket connection, or an event from a tk widget.

Examples

proc serverOpen {channel addr port} {
    global connected
    set connected 1
    fileevent $channel readable "readLine Server $channel"
    puts "OPENED"
}

proc readLine {who channel} {
    global didRead
    if { [gets $channel line] < 0} {
	fileevent $channel readable {}
	after idle "close $channel;set out 1"
    } else {
	puts "READ LINE: $line"
	puts $channel "This is a return"
	flush $channel;
	set didRead 1
    }
}

set connected 0
# catch {socket -server serverOpen 33000} server
set server [socket -server serverOpen 33000]

after 100 update

set sock [socket -async 127.0.0.1 33000]
vwait connected

puts $sock "A Test Line"
flush $sock
vwait didRead
set len [gets $sock line]
puts "Return line: $len -- $line"

catch {close $sock}
vwait out
close $server