Function

Summary

Create a new process, passing it a function to run.

Package

mp

Signature

process-run-function name keywords function &rest arguments => process

Arguments

name

A name for the new process.

keywords

Keywords specifying properties of the new process.

function

A function to apply.

arguments

Arguments to pass to function .

Values

process

The newly created process.

Description

This function creates a new Lisp process with name name. Other properties of process may be specified in keyword/value pairs in keywords :

:priority

A fixnum representing the priority for the process. If :priority is not supplied, the process priority becomes the value of the variable *default-process-priority* .

:mailbox

A mailbox object, a string, t or nil , used to initialize the process-mailbox of process .

True values specify that process should have a mailbox. A mailbox object is used as-is; a string is used as the name of a new mailbox; and t causes it to create a mailbox with the same name as process , that is, name .

Note that both process-send and process-wait-for-event force the relevant process to have a mailbox.

The new process is preset to apply function to arguments and runs in parallel, while process-run-function returns immediately.

Example

CL-USER 253 > (defvar *stream* *standard-output*)

*STREAM*

CL-USER 254 > (mp:process-run-function 

               "My process" 

               '(:priority 42) 

               #'(lambda (x) 

                   (loop for i below x 

                         do (and (print i *stream*) 

                                 (sleep 1))

                         finally 

                         (print (mp:process-priority 

                                 mp:*current-process*) 

                                *stream*)))

               3)

#<MP:PROCESS Name "My process" Priority 850000 State "Running">

0 

1 

2 

42 

CL-USER 255 >

See also

*default-process-priority*