Keep Calm (and call Clone)

Simple shared types for multi-threaded Rust programs: keepcalm gives you permission to simplify your synchronization code in concurrent Rust applications.

Name inspired by @luser's Keep Calm and Call Clone.

Overview

This library simplifies a number of shared-object patterns that are used in multi-threaded programs such as web-servers.

Advantages of keepcalm:

• You don't need to decide on your synchronization primitives up-front. Everything is a Shared or SharedMut, no matter whether it's a mutex, read/write lock, read/copy/update primitive, or a read-only shared std::sync::Arc.
• Everything is project!able, which means you can adjust the granularity of your locks at any time without having to refactor the whole system. If you want finer-grained locks at a later date, the code that uses the shared containers doesn't change!
• Writeable containers can be turned into read-only containers, while still retaining the ability for other code to update the contents.
• Read and write guards are Send thanks to the parking_lot crate.
• Each synchronization primitive transparently manages the poisoned state (if code panic!s while the lock is being held). If you don't want to poison on panic!, constructors are available to disable this option entirely.
• static Globally-scoped containers for both Sync and !Sync objects are easily constructed using SharedGlobal, and can provide Shared containers. Mutable global containers can similarly be constructed with SharedGlobalMut. NOTE: This requires the --feature global_experimental flag
• The same primitives work in both synchronous and async contents (caveat: the latter being experimental at this time): you can simply await an asynchronous version of the lock using read_async and write_async.
• Minimal performance impact: benchmarks shows approximately the same performance between the raw parking_lot primitives/tokio async containers and those in keepcalm.

Performance

A rough benchmark shows approximately equivalent performance to both tokio and parking_lot primitives in async and sync contexts. While keepcalm shows performance slightly faster than parking_lot in some cases, this is probably measurement noise.

Container types

The following container types are available:

The following global container types are available:

Basic syntax

The traditional Rust shared object patterns tend to be somewhat verbose and repetitive, for example:

# use std::sync::{Arc, Mutex};
# fn use_string(s: &str) {}
struct Foo {
    my_string: Arc<Mutex<String>>,
    my_integer: Arc<Mutex<u16>>,
}
let foo = Foo {
    my_string: Arc::new(Mutex::new("123".to_string())),
    my_integer: Arc::new(Mutex::new(1)),
};
use_string(&*foo.my_string.lock().expect("Mutex was poisoned"));

If we want to switch our shared fields from std::sync::Mutex to std::sync::RwLock, we need to change four lines just for types, and switch the lock method for a read method.

We can increase flexibility, and reduce some of the ceremony and verbosity with keepcalm:

# use keepcalm::*;
# fn use_string(s: &str) {}
struct Foo {
    my_string: SharedMut<String>,
    my_integer: SharedMut<u16>,
}
let foo = Foo {
    my_string: SharedMut::new("123".to_string()),
    my_integer: SharedMut::new(1),
};
use_string(&*foo.my_string.read());

If we want to use a Mutex instead of the default RwLock that SharedMut uses under the hood, we only need to change SharedMut::new to SharedMut::new_mutex!

SharedMut

The SharedMut object hides the complexity of managing Arc<Mutex<T>>, Arc<RwLock<T>>, and other synchronization types behind a single interface:

# use keepcalm::*;
let object = "123".to_string();
let shared = SharedMut::new(object);
shared.read();

By default, a SharedMut object uses Arc<RwLock<T>> under the hood, but you can choose the synchronization primitive at construction time. The SharedMut object erases the underlying primitive and you can use them interchangeably:

# use keepcalm::*;
fn use_shared(shared: SharedMut<String>) {
    shared.read();
}

let shared = SharedMut::new("123".to_string());
use_shared(shared);
let shared = SharedMut::new_mutex("123".to_string());
use_shared(shared);

Managing the poison state of synchronization primitives can be challenging as well. Rust will poison a Mutex or RwLock if you hold a lock while a panic! occurs.

The SharedMut type allows you to specify a PoisonPolicy at construction time. By default, if a synchronization primitive is poisoned, the SharedMut will panic! on access. This can be configured so that poisoning is ignored:

# use keepcalm::*;
let shared = SharedMut::new_with_policy("123".to_string(), PoisonPolicy::Ignore);

Shared

The default Shared object is similar to Rust's std::sync::Arc, but adds the ability to project. Shared objects may also be constructed as a Mutex, or may be a read-only view into a SharedMut.

Note that because of this flexibility, the Shared object is slightly more complex than a traditional std::sync::Arc, as all accesses must be performed through the Shared::read accessor.

EXPERIMENTAL: Globals

NOTE: This requires the --feature global_experimental flag

While static globals may often be an anti-pattern in Rust, this library also offers easily-to-use alternatives that are compatible with the Shared and SharedMut types.

Global Shared references can be created using SharedGlobal:

# use keepcalm::*;
# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
static GLOBAL: SharedGlobal<usize> = SharedGlobal::new(1);

# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
fn use_global() {
    assert_eq!(GLOBAL.read(), 1);

    // ... or ...

    let shared: Shared<usize> = GLOBAL.shared();
    assert_eq!(shared.read(), 1);
}

Similarly, global SharedMut references can be created using SharedGlobalMut:

# use keepcalm::*;
# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
static GLOBAL: SharedGlobalMut<usize> = SharedGlobalMut::new(1);

# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
fn use_global() {
    *GLOBAL.write() = 12;
    assert_eq!(GLOBAL.read(), 12);

    // ... or ...

    let shared: SharedMut<usize> = GLOBAL.shared_mut();
    *shared.write() = 12;
    assert_eq!(shared.read(), 12);
}

Both SharedGlobal and SharedGlobalMut offer a new_lazy constructor that allows initialization to be deferred to first access:

# use keepcalm::*;
# use std::collections::HashMap;
# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
static GLOBAL_LAZY: SharedGlobalMut<HashMap<&str, usize>> =
    SharedGlobalMut::new_lazy(|| HashMap::from_iter([("a", 1), ("b", 2)]));

EXPERIMENTAL: Async

NOTE: This requires the --feature async_experimental flag

This is extremely experimental and may have soundness and/or performance issues!

The Shared and SharedMut types support a read_async and write_async method that will block using an async runtime's spawn_blocking method (or equivalent). Create a Spawner using make_spawner and pass that to the appropriate lock method.

# use keepcalm::*;
# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
static SPAWNER: Spawner = make_spawner!(tokio::task::spawn_blocking);

# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
async fn get_locked_value(shared: Shared<usize>) -> usize {
    *shared.read_async(&SPAWNER).await
}

# #[cfg(feature="global_experimental")]
{
    let shared = Shared::new(1);
    get_locked_value(shared);
}

Projection

Both Shared and SharedMut allow projection into the underlying type. Projection can be used to select either a subset of a type, or to cast a type to a trait. The project! and project_cast! macros can simplify this code.

Note that projections are always linked to the root object! If a projection is locked, the root object is locked.

Casting:

# use keepcalm::*;
let shared = SharedMut::new("123".to_string());
let shared_asref: SharedMut<dyn AsRef<str>> = shared.project(project_cast!(x: String => dyn AsRef<str>));

Subset of a struct/tuple:

# use keepcalm::*;
#[derive(Default)]
struct Foo {
    tuple: (String, usize)
}

let shared = SharedMut::new(Foo::default());
let shared_string: SharedMut<String> = shared.project(project!(x: Foo, x.tuple.0));

*shared_string.write() += "hello, world";
assert_eq!(shared.read().tuple.0, "hello, world");
assert_eq!(*shared_string.read(), "hello, world");

Unsized types

Both Shared and SharedMut support unsized types, but due to current limitations in the language (see std::ops::CoerceUnsized for details), you need to construct them in special ways.

Unsized traits are supported, but you will either need to specify Send + Sync in the shared type, or project_cast! the object:

# use keepcalm::*;

// In this form, `Send + Sync` are visible in the shared type
let boxed: Box<dyn AsRef<str> + Send + Sync> = Box::new("123".to_string());
let shared: SharedMut<dyn AsRef<str> + Send + Sync> = SharedMut::from_box(boxed);

// In this form, `Send + Sync` are erased via projection
let shared = SharedMut::new("123".to_string());
let shared_asref: SharedMut<dyn AsRef<str>> = shared.project(project_cast!(x: String => dyn AsRef<str>));

Unsized slices are supported using a box:

# use keepcalm::*;
let boxed: Box<[i32]> = Box::new([1, 2, 3]);
let shared: SharedMut<[i32]> = SharedMut::from_box(boxed);