Concurrent::Progress

It's fairly straightforward to wire up concurrent progress reporting in Perl 6: just create a Supplier, use it to emit progress reports, and have things wishing to receive progress reports tap the Supply. That's exactly what this module does on this inside; it just saves some boilerplate and helps get a little more intent into the code. It is best suited to cases where "N out of M"-style progress reports are desired, where N reaching M indicates completion. However, it may be used in cases where there is no target also.

Synopsis

In the operation that should report progress, take Concurrent::Progress as a parameter (usually optional) and use it. If no instance is passed, then the method calls will be made on the type object, and will silently do nothing.

sub some-async-operation(Concurrent::Progress :$progress) {
    start {
        # Optionally set a target (get percentage completion calculation
        # for free).
        my @things-to-do = ...;
        $progress.set-target(@things-to-do.elems);

        # Can add 1 to the count of things completed.
        for @things-to-do {
            ...;
            $progress.increment();
        }

        # Or can add many.
        for @things-to-do.batch(5) -> @batch {
            ...;
            $progress.add(@batch.elems);
        }

        # Or can just set the value, if we're counting by ourselves.
        for @things-to-do.kv -> $idx, $obj {
            ...;
            $progress.set-value($idx + 1);
        }
    }
}

Meanwhile, in the caller (note that whenever automatically calls Supply on the Concurrent::Progress object):

my $progress = Concurrent::Progress.new;
react {
    whenever $progress -> $status {
        say "$status.value() / $status.target() ($status.percent()%)";
    }

    whenever some-async-operation(:$progress) {
        say "Completed";
    }
}

Construction

A Concurrent::Progress instance will usually be constructed by the initiator of an asynchronous operation. No options are required, but the following may be provided:

• auto-done - automatically emits a done message on the Supply of progress reports when the current value reaches the target. This means a whenever will complete (which is why the react block in the synopsis example terminates). Defaults to True. Note this is only applicable if set-target is called.
• min-interval - the minimum time interval between progress updates. Can be provided as an Real (Int, Rat, Duration, etc.) If provided, then there will be at most one update per the specified time interval (so, passing 1 means at most one update per second). If this option is not specified, then every progress report will be emitted.

Methods for reporting progress

The following methods may be called to report progress:

• set-target(Int $target) - sets the target to be reached to indicate completion. In many cases, where the total amount of work is known up-front, then this will be called once. Calling it allows automatic computation of the percentage complete in progress reports; if it is not called, then the percentage complete will be undefined. It is allowed to call set-target multiple times if there is a "moving target", but if using auto-done then it is up to you to ensure the value never reaches the target prematurely.
• add-target(Int $amount) - adds a specific value to the current target.
• increment-target() - increments the target value by one.
• set-value(Int $value) - sets the current value included in progress reports, and triggers emitting a progress report if appropirate.
• increment - adds 1 to the current value. It is safe to make multiple concurrent calls to increment (making this highly convenient for divide and conquer style code).
• add(Int $n) - adds $n to the current value. As with increment, multiple concurrent calls are safe.

Methods for receiving progress reports

Progress reports are delivered using a Supply. This is a live Supply, so if it matters that you receive every progress report then be sure to tap it prior to starting the work.

The Supply method is used to obtain the Supply of progress reports (which means a Concurrent::Progress object may be used directly with whenever). The Supply will emit instances of Concurrent::Progress::Report, which has the following properties:

• value - the current value (which will typically correspond to items processed, bytes download/uploaded, etc.)
• target - if set, the target to which the value property is working (total items to process, total bytes to be downloaded/uploaded, etc.)
• percent - if target is defined, then (100 * $.value / $.target).Int; if not, then an Int type object.

Provided auto-done was not disabled at construction time, then a done will be sent when value reaches target.

It is also possible to pass auto-done and min-interval to the Supply method, in order to override them on a per-Supply basis. This may be useful if you did not have control over the creation of the Concurrent::Progress instance.