Multi-Threading¶

In NPL, multi-threading is handled in the same way as networking communication. In other words, activating scripts in other local threads is virtually the same as calling scripts running on another computer. You simply communicate with remote script file with the NPL.activate in the same way for both local threads and remote computers. The only difference is that the target script url is different.

For example, to activate a script on local thread A, one can use

NPL.activate("(A)helloworld.lua", {});

To activate the script in a remote computer B‘s C thread, one can use

NPL.activate("(C)B:helloworld.lua", {});

For more information, please see file activation

Creating NPL Worker Thread¶

NPL worker thread must be created, before messages to it can be processed by script running in that thread.

NPL.activate("(A)helloworld.lua", {}); does not automatically create thread A. You need to call following code to create NPL runtime on thread A.

NPL.CreateRuntimeState("A", 0):Start();

After that, messages sent to (A)helloworld.lua will be processed in a real system-level thread called A.

Example Project¶

Now let us create a real multi-threaded application with just a single file script/test/TestMultithread.lua. The application print helloworld in 5 threads simultaneously.

NPL.load("(gl)script/ide/commonlib.lua");

local function Start()
   for i=1, 5 do
      local thead_name = "T"..i;
      NPL.CreateRuntimeState(thead_name, 0):Start();
      NPL.activate(format("(%s)script/test/TestMultithread.lua", thead_name), {
       text = "hello world", 
       sleep_time = math.random()*5,
      });
   end
end

local isStarted;
local function activate()
   if(msg and msg.text) then
      -- sleep random seconds to simulate heavy task
      ParaEngine.Sleep(msg.sleep_time);
      LOG.std(nil, "info", "MultiThread", "%s from thread %s", msg.text,  __rts__:GetName());
   elseif(not isStarted) then
      -- initialize on first call 
      isStarted = true;
      Start();
   end
end

NPL.this(activate);

To run above file, use

NPL.activate("(gl)script/test/TestMultithread.lua");

or from command line

npl script/test/TestMultithread.lua

The output will be something like below

2016-03-16 6:22:00 PM|T1|info|MultiThread|hello world from thread T1
2016-03-16 6:22:01 PM|T3|info|MultiThread|hello world from thread T3
2016-03-16 6:22:03 PM|T2|info|MultiThread|hello world from thread T2
2016-03-16 6:22:03 PM|T5|info|MultiThread|hello world from thread T5
2016-03-16 6:22:04 PM|T4|info|MultiThread|hello world from thread T4

Advanced Examples¶

Following NPL modules utilize multiple local threads.

script/apps/DBServer/DBServer.lua: a database server, each thread for processing SQL logics, a thread monitor is used to find the most free thread to route any sql query.

Other Options¶

By design, threading should be avoided to simplify software design and debugging. In addition to real threads, it is usually preferred to use architecture to avoid using thread at all.

Timer/callbacks/events/signals are good candidates for asynchronous tasks in a single thread. With NPL.activate, it even allows you to switch implementation without changing any code; and you can boost performance or debug code in a single thread more easily.
Coroutine is a lua language feature, which is also supported by NPL. In short, it uses a single thread to simulate multiple virtual threads, allowing you to share all data in the same thread without using locks, but still allowing the developer to yield CPU resource to other virtual threads at any time. The interactive debugging module in NPL is implemented with coroutines. Please see script/ide/Debugger/IPCDebugger.lua for details.