Question

I’m using Goliath (which is powered by eventmachine) and the postgres gem pg, currently I’m using the pg gem in a blocking way: conn.exec('SELECT * FROM products') (for example) and I’m wondering whether there is a better way to connect to a postgres database?

Answer 1

The pg library provides full support for PostgreSQL’s asynchronous API. I’ve added an example of how to use it to the samples/ directory:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'pg'

# This is a example of how to use the asynchronous API to query the
# server without blocking other threads. It's intentionally low-level;
# if you hooked up the PGconn#socket to some kind of reactor, you
# could make this much nicer.

TIMEOUT = 5.0 # seconds to wait for an async operation to complete
CONN_OPTS = {
    :host     => 'localhost',
    :dbname   => 'test',
    :user     => 'jrandom',
    :password => 'banks!stealUR$',
}

# Print 'x' continuously to demonstrate that other threads aren't
# blocked while waiting for the connection, for the query to be sent,
# for results, etc. You might want to sleep inside the loop or 
# comment this out entirely for cleaner output.
progress_thread = Thread.new { loop { print 'x' } }

# Output progress messages
def output_progress( msg )
    puts "\n>>> #{msg}\n"
end

# Start the connection
output_progress "Starting connection..."
conn = PGconn.connect_start( CONN_OPTS ) or 
    abort "Unable to create a new connection!"
abort "Connection failed: %s" % [ conn.error_message ] if
    conn.status == PGconn::CONNECTION_BAD

# Now grab a reference to the underlying socket so we know when the
# connection is established
socket = IO.for_fd( conn.socket )

# Track the progress of the connection, waiting for the socket to 
# become readable/writable before polling it
poll_status = PGconn::PGRES_POLLING_WRITING
until poll_status == PGconn::PGRES_POLLING_OK ||
      poll_status == PGconn::PGRES_POLLING_FAILED

    # If the socket needs to read, wait 'til it becomes readable to
    # poll again
    case poll_status
    when PGconn::PGRES_POLLING_READING
        output_progress "  waiting for socket to become readable"
        select( [socket], nil, nil, TIMEOUT ) or
            raise "Asynchronous connection timed out!"

    # ...and the same for when the socket needs to write
    when PGconn::PGRES_POLLING_WRITING
        output_progress "  waiting for socket to become writable"
        select( nil, [socket], nil, TIMEOUT ) or
            raise "Asynchronous connection timed out!"
    end

    # Output a status message about the progress
    case conn.status
    when PGconn::CONNECTION_STARTED
        output_progress "  waiting for connection to be made."
    when PGconn::CONNECTION_MADE
        output_progress "  connection OK; waiting to send."
    when PGconn::CONNECTION_AWAITING_RESPONSE
        output_progress "  waiting for a response from the server."
    when PGconn::CONNECTION_AUTH_OK
        output_progress "  received authentication; waiting for " +
                        "backend start-up to finish."
    when PGconn::CONNECTION_SSL_STARTUP
        output_progress "  negotiating SSL encryption."
    when PGconn::CONNECTION_SETENV
        output_progress "  negotiating environment-driven " +
                        "parameter settings."
    end

    # Check to see if it's finished or failed yet
    poll_status = conn.connect_poll
end

abort "Connect failed: %s" % [ conn.error_message ] unless 
    conn.status == PGconn::CONNECTION_OK

output_progress "Sending query"
conn.send_query( "SELECT * FROM pg_stat_activity" )

# Fetch results until there aren't any more
loop do
    output_progress "  waiting for a response"

    # Buffer any incoming data on the socket until a full result 
    # is ready. 
    conn.consume_input
    while conn.is_busy
        select( [socket], nil, nil, TIMEOUT ) or
            raise "Timeout waiting for query response."
        conn.consume_input
    end

    # Fetch the next result. If there isn't one, the query is 
    # finished
    result = conn.get_result or break

    puts "\n\nQuery result:\n%p\n" % [ result.values ]
end

output_progress "Done."
conn.finish

if defined?( progress_thread )
    progress_thread.kill
    progress_thread.join
end

I’d recommend that you read the documentation on the PQconnectStart function and the Asynchronous Command Processing section of the PostgreSQL manual, and then compare that with the sample above.

I haven’t used EventMachine before, but if it lets you register a socket and callbacks for when it becomes readable/writable, I’d think it’d be fairly easy to integrate database calls into it.

I’ve been meaning to use the ideas in Ilya Grigorik’s article on using Fibers to clean up evented code to make the async API easier to use, but that’s a ways off. I do have a ticket open to track it if you’re interested/motivated to do it yourself.