NAME

       Coro::Storable - offer a more fine-grained Storable interface

SYNOPSIS

        use Coro::Storable;

DESCRIPTION

       This module implements a few functions from the Storable module in a way so that it cede's
       more often. Some applications (such as the Deliantra game server) sometimes need to load
       large Storable objects without blocking the server for a long time.

       This is being implemented by using a perlio layer that feeds only small amounts of data
       (4096 bytes per call) into Storable, and "Coro::cede"'ing regularly (at most 100 times per
       second by default, though).

       As Storable is not reentrant, this module also wraps most functions of the Storable module
       so that only one freeze or thaw is done at any one moment (and recursive invocations are
       not currently supported).

FUNCTIONS

       $ref = thaw $pst
           Retrieve an object from the given $pst, which must have been created with
           "Coro::Storable::freeze" or "Storable::store_fd"/"Storable::store" (sorry, but
           Storable uses incompatible formats for disk/mem objects).

           This function will cede regularly.

       $pst = freeze $ref
           Freeze the given scalar into a Storable object. It uses the same format as
           "Storable::store_fd".

           This functino will cede regularly.

       $pst = nfreeze $ref
           Same as "freeze" but is compatible to "Storable::nstore_fd" (note the "n").

       $pst = blocking_freeze $ref
           Same as "freeze" but is guaranteed to block. This is useful e.g. in
           "Coro::Util::fork_eval" when you want to serialise a data structure for use with the
           "thaw" function for this module. You cannot use "Storable::freeze" for this as
           Storable uses incompatible formats for memory and file images, and this module uses
           file images.

       $pst = blocking_nfreeze $ref
           Same as "blocking_freeze" but uses "nfreeze" internally.

       $guard = guard
           Acquire the Storable lock, for when you want to call Storable yourself.

           Note that this module already wraps all Storable functions, so there is rarely the
           need to do this yourself.

AUTHOR

        Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
        http://home.schmorp.de/