methodmissing / channel

Simple native Channel object for Ruby MRI
  (c) 2009 Lourens Naudé (methodmissing), James Tucker (raggi) 
 
  http://github.com/methodmissing/channel

This library works with Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 and is a more efficient
implementation of the following Ruby code :

  class RubyChannel
    def initialize
      @subscribers = []
    end
    def subscribe(&b)
      @subscribers << b
      self
    end
    def <<(o)
      @subscribers.each { |s| s.call(o) }
    end
  end

Use cases :

  * In process message dispatch
  * Parsers and protocols with a message, error and warning channel 
  * Facilitates decoupled notification and callback patterns

Caveats :

  * Fixed width channel size for very thin, and fast, subscriber management

Examples :

  counter = 0
  ch = Channel.new.subscribe{|obj| counter += obj }
  ch << 3
  ch << -2
  counter #=> 1  

Todo :
  
  * A deferrable mode that notifies on a background thread (pending 1.9)
  * More flexible notification mechanism through integration with http://github.com/methodmissing/callback/tree/master 
  * Filters

To run the test suite:

  rake

To run the benchmarks:

  rake bench