Web Worker

Easily use Web Workers to offload CPU-intensive computations or manage external processes. A library for seamlessly integrating Web Workers with Effection programs.

This package provides two functions. {@link useWorker} used in the main thread to start and establish communication with the worker. {@link workerMain} used in the worker script to invoke a worker function and send data back to the main thread.

Features

• Establishes two-way communication between the main and the worker threads
• Gracefully shutdowns the worker from the main thread
• Propagates errors from the worker to the main thread
• Type-safe message handling with TypeScript

Usage: Get worker's return value

The return value of the worker is the return value of the function passed to workerMain.

Worker thread

import { workerMain } from "@effectionx/worker";

await workerMain<number, number, number, number>(function* fibonacci({
  data: n, // data sent to the worker from the main thread
}) {
  if (n <= 1) return n;

  let a = 0,
    b = 1;
  for (let i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
    let temp = a + b;
    a = b;
    b = temp;
  }

  return b;
});

Main Thread

You can easily retrieve this value from the worker object returned by useWorker function in the main thread.

import { run } from "effection";
import { useWorker } from "@effectionx/worker";

await run(function* () {
  const worker = yield* useWorker<number, number, number, number>(
    "./fibonacci.ts",
    {
      type: "module",
      data: 5, // data is passed to the operation function (can be any serializable value)
    },
  );

  const result = yield* worker; // wait for the result to receive the result

  console.log(result); // Output: 5
});

Error handling

Errors thrown in the function passed to workerMain can be captured in the main thread by wrapping yield* worker in a try/catch block;

try {
  const result = yield * worker;

  console.log(result);
} catch (e) {
  console.error(e); // error will be available here
}

Usage: Sending messages to the worker

The worker can respond to incoming messages using forEach function provided by the messages object passed to the workerMain function.

Worker Thread

import { workerMain } from "../worker.ts";

await workerMain<number, number, void, number>(function* ({ messages, data }) {
  let counter = data;

  yield* messages.forEach(function* (message) {
    counter += message;
    return counter;
  });

  return counter;
});

Main Thread

The main thread can send messages to the worker using the send method on the object returned by useWorker. Effection will wait for the value to be returned from the worker before continuing.

import { run } from "effection";
import { useWorker } from "@effectionx/worker";

await run(function* () {
  const worker = yield* useWorker<number, number, number, number>(
    "./counter-worker.ts",
    {
      type: "module",
      data: 5, // initial value (can be any serializable value)
    },
  );

  console.log(yield* worker.send(5)); // Output 10

  console.log(yield* worker.send(10)); // Output: 20

  console.log(yield* worker.send(-5)); // Output: 15
});

Error Handling

You can catch error thrown while computing result for a message by wrapping yield* wrapper.send() in a try/catch.

try {
  console.log(yield * worker.send(5)); // Output 10
} catch (e) {
  console.error(e); // error will be available here
}