New task: socket-server #549

pesterhazy · 2016-12-23T22:12:37Z

Exposes the Socket Server functionality available in Clojure 1.8 or above as a new task. By default, the handler function is clojure.core.server/repl, but a different handler can be specified.

This is useful because Clojure's standard way of enabling the socket server, by setting a system property, doesn't work well with boot (#453).

Wheres boot repl --server, provides nREPL functionality used in CIDER, boot socket-server can be used e.g. with Emacs's inf-clojure mode. It starts up much faster than boot repl --server (12s vs 80s), and is more easily accessible using nc or telnet. But compared to REPLy it is pretty bare-bones and doesn't provide advanced features like auto-completion or beautiful stack traces.

This commit adds a new task rather than extending repl. The reason is that Socket Servers provides not just REPL but server functionality in general, and that repl semantics are already confusing because of how --server and --client flags work.

Like repl, socket-server defaults to picking a port at random and stores it in a file, .socket-port, in the current directory.

Fixes #453

martinklepsch

Great addition IMO! 👍 Just a few minor suggestions.

martinklepsch · 2017-01-05T10:56:20Z

boot/core/src/boot/task/built_in.clj

+   a accept ACCEPT  sym    "Namespaced symbol of the accept function to invoke."]
+  (let [repl-soc (delay (core/launch-socket-server *opts*))]
+    (core/with-pass-thru [fs]
+      @repl-soc)))


This starts the server but doesn't shut it down afterwards. Not sure if that's necessary, maybe you can comment on that. See boot.core/cleanup and clojure.core.server/stop-server if you decide to add it.

https://github.com/boot-clj/boot/blob/master/doc/boot.core.md#cleanup

Cleanup task is currently problematic with REPL. If boot is run inside repl task, cleanup from that boot-in-boot would kill also host REPL. So, for now, this probably shouldn't use cleanup: #554

I don't know much about boot-in-boot so I'll defer to your judgment that cleaning up is dangerous right now.

martinklepsch · 2017-01-05T10:58:20Z

boot/core/src/boot/core.clj

+    (let [effective-port (-> ((resolve 'clojure.core.server/start-server) opts)
+                             (.getLocalPort))]
+      (doto (io/file ".socket-port") .deleteOnExit (spit effective-port))
+      (util/info "Socket server started on port %s on host %s.\n" effective-port (:host opts)))))


I think this function should be moved into a namespace that is available within pods.

And could there be a more useful return value than nil? Maybe the name (which is needed when stopping servers) or a function that stops the server?

Updated the PR to return the name

Not sure which namespace would appropriate. I also don't understand the "accessible from pods" distinction - could you elaborate why that would be useful?

Basically boot.core cannot be loaded in a pod because it has stateful stuff that we don't want to replicate. There may be a moment where you want to launch a socket server in a pod though which, with the function in boot.core, would require copying the implementation somewhere where it can be loaded by the pod.

For this reason I'm suggesting we put the function somewhere where it is also available in pods. That could be boot.util or boot.pod, probably there are more, but these two come to mind...

pesterhazy · 2017-01-23T15:27:19Z

Looking into this again, I thought about your suggestion, @martinklepsch. boot.pod or boot.util don't seem appropriate places to put this code as they contain fns to do with pods or utilities.

I don't fully understand why code in a pod would want to run launch-socket-server as opposed to just calling clojure.core.server/start-server. In my view launch-socket-server is just the implementation of the deftask.

I chose core.clj so the fn sits next to launch-nrepl. Is part of the concern that we shouldn't clutter core.clj? In that case maybe boot.task.built-in would be better?

martinklepsch · 2017-01-23T15:35:17Z

launch-nrepl runs an nrepl server in a pod via boot.repl/launch-nrepl 🙂

The concern is not cluttering core but instead making it available as a general utility (which includes usage from within pods) which is not possible when it's put into core.

Seeing that there is boot.repl maybe it should just go there?

Edit: if you look closely at boot.core/launch-nrepl you see it's mostly a shim around boot.repl/launch-nrepl that handles some defaults around pods and allows passing the name of a pod where the nrepl server should be launched.

pesterhazy · 2017-01-23T15:38:22Z

Would this mean that the code needs to be run in a pod, like the nrepl server?

martinklepsch · 2017-01-23T15:41:29Z

@pesterhazy no, you can still run it in your regular REPL just like that or wherever you want of course (theoretically everything is in a pod but that's more of a detail and probably not what you're concerned about).

Exposes the Socket Server functionality available in Clojure 1.8 or above as a task. By default, the handler function is clojure.core.server/repl, but a different handler can be specified.

pesterhazy · 2017-02-06T15:04:13Z

I've updated the PR as per the comments above

martinklepsch · 2017-03-02T09:05:33Z

I think this is good to merge but maybe someone else can take a look too? @Deraen @alandipert?

alandipert · 2017-03-03T04:44:54Z

Just took a look. Awesome, thanks!

Looking at this I thought it might be cool if launch-socket-server took an optional pod name argument. Then we'd have a way to get simultaneous pod REPLs. If it took the argument, the pod name should perhaps influence the name of .socket-port, or maybe not create such a file at all.

danielsz · 2017-03-03T18:21:57Z

Great work, folks. Thank you!

pesterhazy · 2017-03-05T15:08:13Z

@alandipert, thanks for merging!

Could you outline a scenario where opening a socket server into a pod would be useful?

martinklepsch · 2017-03-05T17:49:16Z

@pesterhazy I think what @alandipert is thinking of are situations where you want to "look into a pod" but don't have a reference to the pod object and instead only have the name.

I have never needed to look into a pod like that myself though.

alandipert · 2017-03-08T06:22:27Z

@pesterhazy getting a REPL in a pod with the repl task's -P option is useful for developing Boot, and for developing and debugging tasks that use pods.

Using repl -P to get a REPL inside a pod is especially useful when tasks don't make their pods public. It's a way to run code in them anyway 😎

martinklepsch reviewed Jan 5, 2017

View reviewed changes

pesterhazy force-pushed the feature/socket-repl branch from fd451e7 to 193a355 Compare January 16, 2017 18:35

pesterhazy force-pushed the feature/socket-repl branch from 193a355 to d5bf0db Compare February 6, 2017 14:59

New task: socket-repl

2c26383

Exposes the Socket Server functionality available in Clojure 1.8 or above as a task. By default, the handler function is clojure.core.server/repl, but a different handler can be specified.

pesterhazy force-pushed the feature/socket-repl branch from d5bf0db to 2c26383 Compare February 6, 2017 15:02

alandipert merged commit aea894d into boot-clj:master Mar 3, 2017

pesterhazy mentioned this pull request Jun 16, 2017

New task: bare-repl #582

Merged

martinklepsch mentioned this pull request Jun 16, 2017

Socket Repl #619

Closed

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New task: socket-server #549

New task: socket-server #549

pesterhazy commented Dec 23, 2016 •

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New task: socket-server #549

New task: socket-server #549

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