Thread or Select for sockets?!

[masuoda]

which solution you suggest to me for writting a powerful socket server ?! Use traditional IO::Select or Thread in 5.8? Please tell me your reasons if you have suggesstion.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#Traditional IO::Select Example 
use IO::Select;
use IO::Socket;

$Server = new IO::Socket::INET(Listen => 0, LocalPort => 4000, Reuse =
+> 0) || die('Can not open port 4000');
$Select = new IO::Select( $Server );

while(@allSockets = $Select->can_read) {
  foreach $ClientSocket (@allSockets) {
    if($ClientSocket == $Server) {            
      $newClient = $Server->accept;      
      $Select->add($newClient);      
    } else {
        ....
    }
}

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#New stable Thread module in 5.8
use IO::Socket;
use Thread;

$Server = new IO::Socket::INET(Listen => 0, LocalPort => 4000, Reuse =
+> 0) || die('Can not open port 4000');


while(1) {
   $newClientSocket=$Server->accept;
   new Thread \&handleRequest,$newClientSocket;
}

sub handleRequest() {
   $clientSocket=shift;
   ...
}

[ozone]

Well, if it was me starting from scratch, I'd probably have a go at using POE, which implements user-space threads and can handle most of the typical networking problems. What you're probably looking for can be found in the Components section.

Good luck :-)

[strat]

Some links for POE you might finde useful:
http://poe.perl.org/
POE's Cookbook

Best regards,
perl -e "s>>*F>e=>y)\*martinF)stronat)=>print,print v8.8.8.32.11.32"

[Preceptor]

Well, not to blow my own trumpet _too_ much, have a look at this. It's a mud client (read almost telnet but not quite) using IO::Select. IMHO this is the more elegant way than threading or forking, since you neatly sidestep the delightful things known as 'concurrent issues'. Threading requires a certain amount more thought, especially when you do anything to modify a 'global' value. (Some models, threading is good, like for example, I'm currently hacking together an FTP download manager for which it'd suit well. Others, it's just overkill, and potentially dangerous.)
Update: Be aware that some network calls, such as 'gethostbyaddr()' at the OS level are NOT thread safe. I don't know how perl deals with this, but it's one to watch for.
--
It's not pessimism if there is a worse option, it's not paranoia when they are and it's not cynicism when you're right.