Sending data from one goroutine to multiple other goroutines - go

In a project the program receives data via websocket. This data needs to be processed by n algorithms. The amount of algorithms can change dynamically.
My attempt is to create some pub/sub pattern where subscriptions can be started and canceled on the fly. Turns out that this is a bit more challenging than expected.
Here's what I came up with (which is based on https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2020/pubsub-using-channels-in-go/):
package pubsub
import (
"context"
"sync"
"time"
)
type Pubsub struct {
sync.RWMutex
subs []*Subsciption
closed bool
}
func New() *Pubsub {
ps := &Pubsub{}
ps.subs = []*Subsciption{}
return ps
}
func (ps *Pubsub) Publish(msg interface{}) {
ps.RLock()
defer ps.RUnlock()
if ps.closed {
return
}
for _, sub := range ps.subs {
// ISSUE1: These goroutines apparently do not exit properly...
go func(ch chan interface{}) {
ch <- msg
}(sub.Data)
}
}
func (ps *Pubsub) Subscribe() (context.Context, *Subsciption, error) {
ps.Lock()
defer ps.Unlock()
// prep channel
ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.Background())
sub := &Subsciption{
Data: make(chan interface{}, 1),
cancel: cancel,
ps: ps,
}
// prep subsciption
ps.subs = append(ps.subs, sub)
return ctx, sub, nil
}
func (ps *Pubsub) unsubscribe(s *Subsciption) bool {
ps.Lock()
defer ps.Unlock()
found := false
index := 0
for i, sub := range ps.subs {
if sub == s {
index = i
found = true
}
}
if found {
s.cancel()
ps.subs[index] = ps.subs[len(ps.subs)-1]
ps.subs = ps.subs[:len(ps.subs)-1]
// ISSUE2: close the channel async with a delay to ensure
// nothing will be written to the channel anymore
// via a pending goroutine from Publish()
go func(ch chan interface{}) {
time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond)
close(ch)
}(s.Data)
}
return found
}
func (ps *Pubsub) Close() {
ps.Lock()
defer ps.Unlock()
if !ps.closed {
ps.closed = true
for _, sub := range ps.subs {
sub.cancel()
// ISSUE2: close the channel async with a delay to ensure
// nothing will be written to the channel anymore
// via a pending goroutine from Publish()
go func(ch chan interface{}) {
time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond)
close(ch)
}(sub.Data)
}
}
}
type Subsciption struct {
Data chan interface{}
cancel func()
ps *Pubsub
}
func (s *Subsciption) Unsubscribe() {
s.ps.unsubscribe(s)
}
As mentioned in the comments there are (at least) two issues with this:
ISSUE1:
After a while of running in implementation of this I get a few errors of this kind:
goroutine 120624 [runnable]:
bm/internal/pubsub.(*Pubsub).Publish.func1(0x8586c0, 0xc00b44e880, 0xc008617740)
/home/X/Projects/bm/internal/pubsub/pubsub.go:30
created by bookmaker/internal/pubsub.(*Pubsub).Publish
/home/X/Projects/bm/internal/pubsub/pubsub.go:30 +0xbb
Without really understanding this it appears to me that the goroutines created in Publish() do accumulate/leak. Is this correct and what am I doing wrong here?
ISSUE2:
When I end a subscription via Unsubscribe() it occurs that Publish() tried to write to a closed channel and panics. To mitigate this I have created a goroutine to close the channel with a delay. This feel really off-best-practice but I was not able to find a proper solution to this. What would be a deterministic way to do this?
Heres a little playground for you to test with: https://play.golang.org/p/K-L8vLjt7_9

Before diving into your solution and its issues, let me recommend again another Broker approach presented in this answer: How to broadcast message using channel
Now on to your solution.
Whenever you launch a goroutine, always think of how it will end and make sure it does if the goroutine is not ought to run for the lifetime of your app.
// ISSUE1: These goroutines apparently do not exit properly...
go func(ch chan interface{}) {
ch <- msg
}(sub.Data)
This goroutine tries to send a value on ch. This may be a blocking operation: it will block if ch's buffer is full and there is no ready receiver on ch. This is out of the control of the launched goroutine, and also out of the control of the pubsub package. This may be fine in some cases, but this already places a burden on the users of the package. Try to avoid these. Try to create APIs that are easy to use and hard to misuse.
Also, launching a goroutine just to send a value on a channel is a waste of resources (goroutines are cheap and light, but you shouldn't spam them whenever you can).
You do it because you don't want to get blocked. To avoid blocking, you may use a buffered channel with a "reasonable" high buffer. Yes, this doesn't solve the blocking issue, in only helps with "slow" clients receiving from the channel.
To "truly" avoid blocking without launching a goroutine, you may use non-blocking send:
select {
case ch <- msg:
default:
// ch's buffer is full, we cannot deliver now
}
If send on ch can proceed, it will happen. If not, the default branch is chosen immediately. You have to decide what to do then. Is it acceptable to "lose" a message? Is it acceptable to wait for some time until "giving up"? Or is it acceptable to launch a goroutine to do this (but then you'll be back at what we're trying to fix here)? Or is it acceptable to get blocked until the client can receive from the channel...
Choosing a reasonable high buffer, if you encounter a situation when it still gets full, it may be acceptable to block until the client can advance and receive from the message. If it can't, then your whole app might be in an unacceptable state, and it might be acceptable to "hang" or "crash".
// ISSUE2: close the channel async with a delay to ensure
// nothing will be written to the channel anymore
// via a pending goroutine from Publish()
go func(ch chan interface{}) {
time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond)
close(ch)
}(s.Data)
Closing a channel is a signal to the receiver(s) that no more values will be sent on the channel. So always it should be the sender's job (and responsibility) to close the channel. Launching a goroutine to close the channel, you "hand" that job and responsibility to another "entity" (a goroutine) that will not be synchronized to the sender. This may easily end up in a panic (sending on a closed channel is a runtime panic, for other axioms see How does a non initialized channel behave?). Don't do that.
Yes, this was necessary because you launched goroutines to send. If you don't do that, then you may close "in-place", without launching a goroutine, because then the sender and closer will be the same entity: the Pubsub itself, whose sending and closing operations are protected by a mutex. So solving the first issue solves the second naturally.
In general if there are multiple senders for a channel, then closing the channel must be coordinated. There must be a single entity (often not any of the senders) that waits for all senders to finish, practically using a sync.WaitGroup, and then that single entity can close the channel, safely. See Closing channel of unknown length.

Related

Why does sending to channel is blocked when a panic occurs?

I am going to show a simple compilable code snipped where I get weird behaviour: after I intentionally cause a panic in processData (because I pass nil-pointer) the sending to channel l.done is blocked!
package main
import (
"context"
"fmt"
"time"
)
type Loop struct {
done chan struct{}
}
type Result struct {
ID string
}
func NewLoop() *Loop {
return &Loop{
done: make(chan struct{}),
}
}
func (l *Loop) StartAsync(ctx context.Context) {
go func() {
defer func() {
l.done <- struct{}{} // BLOCKED! But I allocated it in NewLoop ctor
fmt.Sprintf("done")
}()
for {
/**/
var data *Result
l.processData(ctx, data) // passed nil
}
}()
}
func (l *Loop) processData(ctx context.Context, data *Result) {
_ = fmt.Sprintf("%s", data.ID) // intentional panic - OK
}
func main() {
l := NewLoop()
l.StartAsync(context.Background())
time.Sleep(10 * time.Second)
}
I can recover() a panic before sending to channel and I get correct error message.
What does happen with channel? It it was closed, I would get panic on sending to closed channel
It's blocking because there isn't anything receiving from the channel. Both the receive & the send operations on an initialized and unbuffered channel will block indefinitely if the opposite operation is missing. I.e. a send to a channel will block until another goroutine receives from that channel, and, likewise, a receive from a channel will block until another goroutine sends to that channel.
So basically
done := new(chan struct{})
done<-struct{}{}
will block forever unless there is another goroutine that receives from the channel, i.e. <-done. That's how channels are supposed to behave. That's how the languages specification defines their behaviour.
about the possible fixes :
given the name of your channel, you may want to run close(l.done) rather than l.done <- struct{}{}.
using a buffered channel and l.done <- struct{}{} on completion : only one call to <-l.done will be unblocked.
Suppose you have some code looking like :
l := NewLoop()
go func(){
<-l.done
closeLoggers()
}()
go func(){
<-l.done
closeDatabase()
}()
sending one item on the done channel will make that only one consumer will receive it, and in the above example only one of the two actions will be triggered when the loop completes.
using close(l.done) : once a channel is closed all calls to receive from it will proceed.
In the above example, all actions will proceed.
As a side note: there is no need for a buffer if you use a channel only for its "open/closed" state.

How to use context.Context with tcp connection read

I am trying to create an intermediate layer between user and tcp, with Send and Receive functions. Currently, I am trying to integrate a context, so that the Send and Receive respects a context. However, I don't know how to make them respect the context's cancellation.
Until now, I got the following.
// c.underlying is a net.Conn
func (c *tcpConn) Receive(ctx context.Context) ([]byte, error) {
if deadline, ok := ctx.Deadline(); ok {
// Set the read deadline on the underlying connection according to the
// given context. This read deadline applies to the whole function, so
// we only set it once here. On the next read-call, it will be set
// again, or will be reset in the else block, to not keep an old
// deadline.
c.underlying.SetReadDeadline(deadline)
} else {
c.underlying.SetReadDeadline(time.Time{}) // remove the read deadline
}
// perform reads with
// c.underlying.Read(myBuffer)
return frameData, nil
}
However, as far as I understand that code, this only respects a context.WithTimeout or context.WithDeadline, and not a context.WithCancel.
If possible, I would like to pass that into the connection somehow, or actually abort the reading process.
How can I do that?
Note: If possible, I would like to avoid another function that reads in another goroutine and pushed a result back on a channel, because then, when calling cancel, and I am reading 2GB over the network, that doesn't actually cancel the read, and the resources are still used. If not possible in another way however, I would like to know if there is a better way of doing that than a function with two channels, one for a []byte result and one for an error.
EDIT:
With the following code, I can respect a cancel, but it doesn't abort the read.
// apply deadline ...
result := make(chan interface{})
defer close(result)
go c.receiveAsync(result)
select {
case res := <-result:
if err, ok := res.(error); ok {
return nil, err
}
return res.([]byte), nil
case <-ctx.Done():
return nil, ErrTimeout
}
}
func (c *tcpConn) receiveAsync(result chan interface{}) {
// perform the reads and push either an error or the
// read bytes to the result channel
If the connection can be closed on cancellation, you can setup a goroutine to shutdown the connection on cancellation within the Receive method. If the connection must be reused again later, then there is no way to cancel a Read in progress.
recvDone := make(chan struct{})
defer close(recvDone)
// setup the cancellation to abort reads in process
go func() {
select {
case <-ctx.Done():
c.underlying.CloseRead()
// Close() can be used if this isn't necessarily a TCP connection
case <-recvDone:
}
}()
It will be a little more work if you want to communicate the cancelation error back, but the CloseRead will provide a clean way to stop any pending TCP Read calls.

Deadlock with buffered channel

I have some code that is a job dispatcher and is collating a large amount of data from lots of TCP sockets. This code is a result of an approach to Large number of transient objects - avoiding contention and it largely works with CPU usage down a huge amount and locking not an issue now either.
From time to time my application locks up and the "Channel length" log is the only thing that keeps repeating as data is still coming in from my sockets. However the count remains at 5000 and no downstream processing is taking place.
I think the issue might be a race condition and the line it is possibly getting hung up on is channel <- msg within the select of the jobDispatcher. Trouble is I can't work out how to verify this.
I suspect that as select can take items at random the goroutine is returning and the shutdownChan doesn't have a chance to process. Then data hits inboundFromTCP and it blocks!
Someone might spot something really obviously wrong here. And offer a solution hopefully!?
var MessageQueue = make(chan *trackingPacket_v1, 5000)
func init() {
go jobDispatcher(MessageQueue)
}
func addMessage(trackingPacket *trackingPacket_v1) {
// Send the packet to the buffered queue!
log.Println("Channel length:", len(MessageQueue))
MessageQueue <- trackingPacket
}
func jobDispatcher(inboundFromTCP chan *trackingPacket_v1) {
var channelMap = make(map[string]chan *trackingPacket_v1)
// Channel that listens for the strings that want to exit
shutdownChan := make(chan string)
for {
select {
case msg := <-inboundFromTCP:
log.Println("Got packet", msg.Avr)
channel, ok := channelMap[msg.Avr]
if !ok {
packetChan := make(chan *trackingPacket_v1)
channelMap[msg.Avr] = packetChan
go processPackets(packetChan, shutdownChan, msg.Avr)
packetChan <- msg
continue
}
channel <- msg
case shutdownString := <-shutdownChan:
log.Println("Shutting down:", shutdownString)
channel, ok := channelMap[shutdownString]
if ok {
delete(channelMap, shutdownString)
close(channel)
}
}
}
}
func processPackets(ch chan *trackingPacket_v1, shutdown chan string, id string) {
var messages = []*trackingPacket_v1{}
tickChan := time.NewTicker(time.Second * 1)
defer tickChan.Stop()
hasCheckedData := false
for {
select {
case msg := <-ch:
log.Println("Got a messages for", id)
messages = append(messages, msg)
hasCheckedData = false
case <-tickChan.C:
messages = cullChanMessages(messages)
if len(messages) == 0 {
messages = nil
shutdown <- id
return
}
// No point running checking when packets have not changed!!
if hasCheckedData == false {
processMLATCandidatesFromChan(messages)
hasCheckedData = true
}
case <-time.After(time.Duration(time.Second * 60)):
log.Println("This channel has been around for 60 seconds which is too much, kill it")
messages = nil
shutdown <- id
return
}
}
}
Update 01/20/16
I tried to rework with the channelMap as a global with some mutex locking but it ended up deadlocking still.
Slightly tweaked the code, still locks but I don't see how this one does!!
https://play.golang.org/p/PGpISU4XBJ
Update 01/21/17
After some recommendations I put this into a standalone working example so people can see. https://play.golang.org/p/88zT7hBLeD
It is a long running process so will need running locally on a machine as the playground kills it. Hopefully this will help get to the bottom of it!
I'm guessing that your problem is getting stuck doing this channel <- msg at the same time as the other goroutine is doing shutdown <- id.
Since neither the channel nor the shutdown channels are buffered, they block waiting for a receiver. And they can deadlock waiting for the other side to become available.
There are a couple of ways to fix it. You could declare both of those channels with a buffer of 1.
Or instead of signalling by sending a shutdown message, you could do what Google's context package does and send a shutdown signal by closing the shutdown channel. Look at https://golang.org/pkg/context/ especially WithCancel, WithDeadline and the Done functions.
You might be able to use context to remove your own shutdown channel and timeout code.
And JimB has a point about shutting down the goroutine while it might still be receiving on the channel. What you should do is send the shutdown message (or close, or cancel the context) and continue to process messages until your ch channel is closed (detect that with case msg, ok := <-ch:), which would happen after the shutdown is received by the sender.
That way you get all of the messages that were incoming until the shutdown actually happened, and should avoid a second deadlock.
I'm new to Go but in this code here
case msg := <-inboundFromTCP:
log.Println("Got packet", msg.Avr)
channel, ok := channelMap[msg.Avr]
if !ok {
packetChan := make(chan *trackingPacket_v1)
channelMap[msg.Avr] = packetChan
go processPackets(packetChan, shutdownChan, msg.Avr)
packetChan <- msg
continue
}
channel <- msg
Aren't you putting something in channel (unbuffered?) here
channel, ok := channelMap[msg.Avr]
So wouldn't you need to empty out that channel before you can add the msg here?
channel <- msg
Like I said, I'm new to Go so I hope I'm not being goofy. :)

Can't get concurrency to work as I expect it

I am trying to understand why my code does not work, so I managed to recreate the problem in a simpler example.
I expected this code to output the string "broadcasted", but it does not output anything.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"time"
)
type hub struct {
handle chan []byte
broadcast chan []byte
}
func (h *hub) init() {
for {
select {
case m := <-h.handle:
handler(m)
case _ = <-h.broadcast:
fmt.Println("broadcasted")
}
}
}
var socketHub = hub{
handle: make(chan []byte),
broadcast: make(chan []byte),
}
func main() {
go socketHub.init()
m := []byte("this is the message")
socketHub.handle <- m
time.Sleep(time.Second * 2)
}
func handler(m []byte) {
// Do some stuff.
socketHub.broadcast <- m
}
Why does this not work?
Your broadcast channel is unbuffered. This means that:
You send the message to the handle channel: main goroutine blocks until...
In the goroutine, the select case gets the message...
And calls (in the goroutine) handler, which sends the message to the broadcast channel, blocking until...
And that's it: your child goroutine is blocking, waiting on itself to pick the message. Concurrently, your main goroutine sleeps, then reaches the end of main, exits and terminates the program.
You can 'solve' it in several ways:
Make your broadcast channel buffered: this way, goroutine sends the message, which succeeds immediately, and returns in the for loop, selecting it back and printing as intended
Make your send a (new) goroutine, either in handler, or by calling go handler(m) in your loop
Have two different goroutines listen to handler and broadcast
Which one you choose depends on the exact problem you try to solve: in this tiny example, it's hard to find a 'best' one.

Recursive sends in monitor goroutine

In a simple scheduler for timers I'm writing, I'm making use of a monitor goroutine to sync start/stop and timer done events.
The monitor goroutine, when stripped down to the essential, looks like this:
actions := make(chan func(), 1024)
// monitor goroutine
go func() {
for a := range actions {
a()
}
}()
actions <- func() {
actions <- func() {
// causes deadlock when buffer size is reached
}
}
This works great, until an action is sent that sends another action.
It's possible for a scheduled action to schedule another action, which causes a deadlock when the buffer size is reached.
Is there any clean way to solve this issue without resorting to shared state (which I've tried in my particular problem, but is quite ugly)?
The problem arises from the fact that when your monitor goroutine "takes out" (receives) a value (a function) and executes it (this also happens on the monitor goroutine), during its execution it sends a value on the monitored channel.
This in itself would not cause deadlock as when the function is executed (a()), it is already taken out of the buffered channel, so there is at least one free space in it, so sending a new value on the channel inside a() could proceed without blocking.
Problem may arise if there are other goroutines which may also send values on the monitored channel, which is your case.
One way to avoid the deadlock is that if the function being executed tries to "put back" (send) a function not in the same goroutine (which is the monitor goroutine), but in a new goroutine, so the monitor goroutine is not blocked:
actions <- func() {
// Send new func value in a new goroutine:
// this will never block the monitor goroutine
go func() {
actions <- func() {
// No deadlock.
}
}()
}
By doing this, the monitor goroutine will not be blocked even if buffer of actions is full, because sending a value on it will happen in a new goroutine (which may be blocked until there is free space in the buffer).
If you want to avoid always spawning a new goroutine when sending a value on actions, you may use a select to first try to send it without spawning a new goroutine. Only when buffer of actions is full and cannot be sent without blocking, shall you spawn a goroutine for sending to avoid deadlock, which - depending on your actual case may happen very rarely, and in this case it's inevitable anyway to avoid deadlock:
actions <- func() {
newfv := func() { /* do something */ }
// First try to send with select:
select {
case actions <- newfv:
// Success!
default:
// Buffer is full, must do it in new goroutine:
go func() {
actions <- newfv
}()
}
}
If you have to do this in many places, it's recommended to create a helper function for it:
func safeSend(fv func()) {
// First try to send with select:
select {
case actions <- fv:
// Success!
default:
// Buffer is full, must do it in new goroutine:
go func() {
actions <- fv
}()
}
}
And using it:
actions <- func() {
safeSend(func() {
// something to do
})
}

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