Kts.ActorsLite
This is a small library that supports various types of asynchronous methods in .NET. It exists in part because I was dissatisfied with the functionality available in the ActionBlock class that comes with the TPL Dataflow library.
This library uses the term "actor" because of Ruby; more specifically, Bernhardt's video Boundaries. It's more like "workers", though. They are queues of functions/methods to be executed.
Library Worker Types:
Most Recent: finish executing the current method and then skip to the method most recently pushed into the queue. This feature is not available in TPL Dataflow (that I can see).
Ordered: run all methods pushed on to the queue in order.
Periodic: run all methods in order but only process them every so often.
Unordered: pass the method straight onto the thread pool. Execution order is not guaranteed.
Sync: in the name of the class means execute it on the thread that calls it (immediately).
Example:
class ExampleClass
{
private struct CriticalParams
{
public int Key;
public string Value;
}
public ExampleClass()
{
_criticalMethod = new MostRecentAsyncActor<CriticalParams>(cp =>
{
Console.WriteLine(cp.Key + " = " + cp.Value);
});
}
private readonly MostRecentAsyncActor<CriticalParams> _criticalMethod;
public async void PrintAndSkipSomeIfTheyComeTooFast(int key, string value)
{
await _criticalMethod.Push(new CriticalParams { Key = key, Value = value });
}
}What I want is the ability to do some aspect-oriented programming with this library. I'd like to decorate a method with something like [MostRecentWorker] and have it insert my actor automatically. This can be done with PostSharp presently. I'll keep an eye on Roslyn's AOP abilities as well.
Schedulers:
The library includes TaskScheduler implementaitions to match the actors. They are usefull for resolving situtions where Task.Run gives you out-of-order execution problems.