spaad

Spooky action at a distance

spaad is a crate which removes the vast majority of boilerplate in xtra, a tiny actor framework. It does this through a proc macro: spaad::entangled. The effect is that both writing a message handler and calling it looks nigh-identical to a traditional method call.

For instance, a handler looks like this:

#[spaad::entangled]
impl MyActor {
    async fn print(&mut self) { /* ... */ }
}

and is called like this:

my_actor.print().await;

Usage

The proc macro spaad::entangled is the core item of spaad. It creates the messages and Handler implementations for each handler from its signature, as well as a struct wrapping the address, which has ergonomic function names for sending messages. The end result is that it looks as though no actors are involved to both the caller and callee. The name of the crate is a cheeky reference to what Einstein called quantum entanglement - "spooky action at a distance" - since in quantum entanglement it also appears that one particle's state is "magically" changed.

This macro is used as an attribute on the actor struct definition and its impl blocks.

Example

use xtra::prelude::*;

#[spaad::entangled]
pub struct Printer {
    times: usize,
}

#[spaad::entangled]
impl Actor for Printer {}

#[spaad::entangled]
impl Printer {
    #[spaad::spawn]
    pub fn new() -> Self {
        Printer { times: 0 }
    }

    #[spaad::handler]
    pub fn print(&mut self, to_print: String) {
        self.times += 1;
        println!(
            "Printing {}. Printed {} times so far.",
            to_print, self.times
        );
    }
}

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    // a Spawner must be provided as the last argument here
    let printer = Printer::new(&mut xtra::spawner::Tokio::Global);

    loop {
        printer.print("hello".to_string()).await;
    }
}

The generated Printer type does not, in fact, contain all members of the strucy, but rather its address. The actual structure is strictly internal and cannot be interacted with except by sending messages or from inside its impl blocks. When referred to inside of impl blocks as a type, Self must be used, as it will be renamed.

It is important to note that the new function is a special case. If it is present, the proc macro will also emit a create method for the actor wrapper, corresponding to Actor::create. It can take arguments. If the with-tokio-0_2 or with-async_std-1_0 features are enabled, then it will also emit a new method, which corresponds to Actor::spawn.

If you do not want to await for the message to complete processing, you can do the following:

let _ = my_actor.print(); // Binding to avoid #[must_use] warning on Future

For a more complex example, such as handling the actor's disconnection and taking Context in a handler, see the documentation or complex.rs in the examples directory. To see the generated code, run cargo +nightly doc in the example_generated folder.

Advantages

• More ergonomic and concise.
• IDE support. It is possible in some IDEs (only tested on IntelliJ IDEA with the Rust plugin) to jump to definition. This is only partial, as in some cases the IDE does not understand the change in the mutability of the self parameter (only &self is required when sending a message, but it looks as though it is declared &mut self).
• Can use nightly API with less chance of UB (by removing an opportunity for UB in GATs), and in a completely transparent manner.

Disadvantages

• Similar caveat to xtra itself: immaturity.
• IDE support is not full. In some cases, there can be issues. This could be resolved by proc macro expansion, but that appears to be a way off. It appears that Rust Analyzer handles this slightly better than IntelliJ Rust, though this may change.

Nightly API

In order to enable the xtra nightly API, disable the default stable feature in your Cargo.toml.

Version compatibility

Spaad 0.4.0 is compatible with xtra 0.5.0.