in reply to Windows Services, Win32::Daemon, Threading, and SOAP::Lite

Simple solution (assuming you're just passing scalar values to your worker threads):
use Thread::Queue; # in your "job shutdown" dispatcher: # # start the worker threads, passing the $q # my @workers = (); my %queues = (); my $q; $q = Thread::Queue->new(), push(@workers, threads->new(\&run, $q)), $queues{$workers[-1]->tid()} = $q foreach (1..$threadcount); # # wait for them all to tell you they're ready # my $resp = $_->dequeue() foreach (values %queues); # # now do yer thang...when you get a "shutdown event": # $queues{$killtid}->enqueue('Kill job');
and a stripped down worker thread:
sub run { my $q = shift; $q->enqueue('ready'); # # need to sleep or otherwise wait for the # spawner to read the queue # while (1) { my $cmd = $q->dequeue(); # # process the command; you'll need to # add a timer to come back and check it # } }
All that being said, if you need to pass around more complex resource objects between threads, you might consider Thread::Queue::Duplex, and make your object threads::shared, e.g.,
package WorkerResource; use Thread::Queue::Queueable; use base qw(Thread::Queue::Queueable); sub new { my $class = shift; my %obj : shared = (); # # ...do some object init.. # return bless \%obj, $class; } # # overload Thread::Queue::Queueable marshal methods # sub curse { # # marshall any complex object members into something # that can be passed over a Thread::Queue::Duplex, # i.e., either a scalar, or a threads::shared ref # note that, if your object is threads::shared, # it implies all its members are either scalar or # threads::shared, so you can use the default TQQ::curse() # # } sub redeem { my ($class, $obj) = @_; # # unmarshall any complex object members and rebless the # object back into its class. # note that, if your object is threads::shared, # it implies all its members are either scalar or # threads::shared, so you can use the default TQQ::redeem(), # which just blesses # } package main; my $q = Thread::Queue::Duplex->new(); my $thread = threads->new(\&run, $q); my $resource = WorkerResource->new(); my $msgid = $q->enqueue($resource); my $result = $q->wait($msgid);
If the resource you're passing between threads needs read/write locking, check Thread::Resource::RWLock.

However, be careful of passing around closures and filehandles. The former just won't work; the latter needs some magic to convert to fileno's in curse() and back to handles in redeem().