rwlock
v5.0.0
Published
A read/write lock implementation for Node.
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73,638
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rwlock
Asynchronous read/write lock implementation for Node.js.
Main rules:
- there may be zero or more readers at a time,
- there may be only one writer at a time,
- there may be no writer if there are one or more readers already.
Installation
It's on npmjs:
$ npm install rwlock
Basic usage
Requiring the package, creating an instance:
var ReadWriteLock = require('rwlock');
var lock = new ReadWriteLock();
Acquiring a read lock:
lock.readLock(function (release) {
// do stuff
release();
});
Acquiring a write lock:
lock.writeLock(function (release) {
// do stuff
release();
});
Locks can be released later:
lock.readLock(function (release) {
// not ready to release yet
setTimeout(function () {
// ok, now I'm ready
release();
}, 1000);
});
Upgrading to a write lock
ReadWriteLock does not explicitly support upgrading but you can take advantage of the asynchronous-ness:
lock.readLock(function (release) {
// read stuff here
// ok, I now realize I need to write
// this will be queued
lock.writeLock(function (release) {
// you can write here
release();
// everything is now released.
});
// release the read lock, this will activate the writer
release();
});
Downgrading to a read lock
Similar to upgrading:
lock.writeLock(function (release) {
lock.readLock(function (release) {
// ...
release();
});
release();
});
Keys
Every ReadWriteLock instance allows you to work on a virtually unlimited number of completely independent read/write locks.
Locks are identified by names called "keys". Every exposed method has an optional "key" first argument indicating the lock to work on; if you don't specify a key, the default lock is used.
Example:
lock.writeLock('lock1', function (release) {
console.log('writing 1...');
lock.writeLock('lock2', function (release) {
console.log('writing 2...');
release();
console.log('done 2.');
});
release();
console.log('done 1.');
});
The previous example logs:
writing 1...
writing 2...
done 2.
done 1.
async compatibility
The ReadWriteLock class does not return errors to your callbacks, but many APIs in Node do. The async
module uses that as a convention: callbacks usually receive two arguments, a possibly null
error object and the actual result in case there is no error.
To aid async
compatibility, ReadWriteLock sends null
errors if you specify the async
flag like in the following example:
lock.async.readLock(function (error, release) {
// no need to check on error, it will always be null
// do stuff here
release();
});
You can use rwlock
and async
together like in this example:
var releaseLock = null;
async.waterfall([function (next) {
lock.async.writeLock(next);
}, function (release, next) {
releaseLock = release;
fs.writeFile('file', 'content', next);
}, function (next) {
releaseLock();
next(null);
}], function (error) {
if (error) {
if (releaseLock) {
releaseLock();
}
console.dir(error);
} else {
console.log('done.');
}
});
Building from source and testing
You don't need this, but in case you want:
$ sudo npm install -g grunt-cli
$ cd
$ git clone https://github.com/71104/rwlock.git
$ cd rwlock
$ npm install
$ grunt all
The following folders will be generated:
- lib, containing the minified ReadWriteLock class to
require
in Node.js; - doc, containing the API reference documentation in HTML format.
License
MIT. Copyright 2013 Alberto La Rocca