This module allows to mix preemptive threads with Lwt cooperative threads. It maintains an extensible pool of preemptive threads to which you can detach computations.
When compiling or linking programs that use Lwt_preemptive, you should pass the -thread or -vmthread option. This depends on your build system. For OCamlbuild, add true: thread to _tags. For OASIS, add threads to BuildDepends in _oasis.
val detach : ('a -> 'b) -> 'a -> 'b Lwt.tdetach f x runs the computation f x in a separate preemptive thread. detach evaluates to an Lwt thread, which waits for the preemptive thread to complete.
Note that Lwt thread-local storage (i.e., Lwt.with_key) cannot be safely used from within f x. The same goes for most of the rest of Lwt. If you need to run an Lwt thread in f x, use run_in_main.
val run_in_main : (unit -> 'a Lwt.t) -> 'arun_in_main f can be called from a detached computation to execute f () in the main preemptive thread, i.e. the one executing Lwt_main.run. run_in_main f blocks until f () completes, then returns its result. If f () raises an exception, run_in_main f raises the same exception.
Lwt.with_key may be used inside f (). Lwt.get can correctly retrieve values set inside f (), but not values set outside the detach invocation that is calling run_in_main.
init min max log initialises this module. i.e. it launches the minimum number of preemptive threads and starts the dispatcher.
simple_init () does a simple initialization. i.e. with default parameters if the library is not yet initialised.
Note: this function is automatically called detach.
get_bounds () returns the minimum and the maximum number of preemptive threads.
set_bounds (min, max) set the minimum and the maximum number of preemptive threads.
Sets the size of the waiting queue, if no more preemptive threads are available. When the queue is full, detach will sleep until a thread is available.