I belive
BrowserUk originally wrote this code - I could not find his original post, so I'm sharing again.
This uses threads/queues, and provides the functionality you are seeking, aside from being an excellent reference implementation:
#! perl -slw
use strict;
use threads;
use Thread::Queue;
$| = 1; #$OUTPUT_AUTOFLUSH
our $KIDS ||= 10;
our $WORK ||= 500;
our $SLEEP||= 5;
sub kid {
my( $Q ) = shift;
my $tid = threads->tid;
my $count=0;
printf "Kid: %02d started\n", $tid;
## Pick a work item of the queue and process it
while( my $work = $Q->dequeue ) {
printf "Kid: %02d processing work item '%s'\n", $tid, $work;
$count ++;
## Replace the sleep with the code to process teh work items
rand > 0.7 and sleep rand( $SLEEP );
}
print "kid: $tid ending after processing $count items.\n";
}
## A queue for communications
my $Q = new Thread::Queue;
## Start the kids
my @kids = map{ threads->create( \&kid, $Q ) } 1 .. $KIDS;
## Wait till they're all up and running
sleep 1 until @{[ threads->list ]} == $KIDS;
## Feed the queue with work
## The limit just ensure we don't fill lots of memory
for my $workitem ( 1 .. $WORK ) {
sleep 1 while $Q->pending > $KIDS *10;
print "Queueing work item $workitem";
$Q->enqueue( $workitem );
}
## Tell them to stop
$Q->enqueue( (undef) x $KIDS );
## And wait for them to do so.
$_->join for @kids;
This is not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.