bthreads

A worker_threads wrapper for node.js. Provides transparent fallback for pre-v12.0.0 node.js (via child_process) as well as browser web workers. Browserifiable, webpack-able.

Usage

const threads = require('bthreads');

if (threads.isMainThread) {
  const worker = new threads.Worker(__filename, {
    workerData: 'foo'
  });

  worker.on('message', console.log);
  worker.on('error', console.error);

  worker.on('exit', (code) => {
    if (code !== 0)
      console.error(`Worker stopped with exit code ${code}.`);
  });
} else {
  threads.parentPort.postMessage(threads.workerData + 'bar');
}

Output:

$ node --experimental-worker threads.js
foobar
$ node threads.js
foobar

Backends

bthreads has 4 backends and a few layers of fallback:

• worker_threads - Uses the still experimental worker_threads module in node.js. Currently only usable if --experimental-worker is passed on the command line.
• child_process - Leverages the child_process module in node.js to emulate worker threads.
• web_workers - Web Workers API (browser only).
• polyfill - A polyfill for the web workers API (note that usage of importScripts will potentially freeze the UI if this backend is loaded).

The current backend is exposed as threads.backend.

Caveats

Some caveats for the child_process backend:

• The transfer list only works for MessagePorts. Array buffers won't actually be transferred.
• options.workerData probably has a limited size depending on platform (the maximum size of an environment variable).
• SharedArrayBuffer does not work and will throw an error if sent.

Caveats for the web_workers backend:

• options.workerData possibly has a limited size depending on the browser (the maximum size of options.name).
• options.eval will create a data URI and execute a new worker from it. When using a bundler, note that the bundler will not be able to compile the eval'd code. This means that require will have limited usability (restricted to only core browserify modules and bthreads itself).
• Furthermore, options.eval requires that data: be set for the worker-src Content-Security-Policy. See content-security-policy.com for a guide.
• The close event for MessagePorts only has partial support (if a thread suddenly terminates, close will not be emitted for any remote ports). This is because the close event is not yet a part of the standard Web Worker API. See https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1766 for more info.

Caveats for the polyfill backend:

• Code will not actually run in a separate context (obviously).
• importScripts will perform a synchronous XMLHttpRequest and potentially freeze the UI. Additionally, XHR is bound to certain cross-origin rules that importScripts is not.

Finally, caveats for the worker_threads backend:

• It is somewhat unstable and crashes a lot with assertion failures, particularly when there is an uncaught exception or the thread is forcefully terminated. Note that worker_threads is still experimental in node.js!
• Native modules will be unusable if they are not built as context-aware addons.

High-level API

The low-level node.js API is not very useful on its own. bthreads optionally provides an API similar to bsock.

Example (for brevity, the async wrapper is not included below):

const threads = require('bthreads');

if (threads.isMainThread) {
  const thread = new threads.Thread(__filename);

  thread.bind('event', (x, y) => {
    console.log(x + y);
  });

  console.log(await thread.call('job', ['hello']));
} else {
  const {parent} = threads;

  parent.hook('job', async (arg) => {
    return arg + ' world';
  });

  parent.fire('event', ['foo', 'bar']);
}

Output:

foobar
hello world

Creating a thread pool

You may find yourself wanting to parallelize the same worker jobs. The high-level API offers a thread pool object (threads.Pool) which will automatically load balance and scale to the number of CPU cores.

if (threads.isMainThread) {
  const pool = new threads.Pool(threads.source);

  const results = await Promise.all([
    pool.call('job1'), // Runs on thread 1.
    pool.call('job2'), // Runs on thread 2.
    pool.call('job3')  // Runs on thread 1.
  ]);

  console.log(results);
} else {
  Buffer.poolSize = 1; // Make buffers easily transferrable.

  pool.hook('job1', async () => {
    const buf = Buffer.from('job1 result');
    return [buf, [buf.buffer]]; // Transfer the array buffer.
  });

  pool.hook('job2', async () => {
    return 'job2 result';
  });

  pool.hook('job3', async () => {
    return 'job3 result';
  });
}

Writing code for node and the browser

It's good to be aware of browserify and how it sets __filename and __dirname.

For example:

const worker = new threads.Worker(`${__dirname}/worker.js`);

If your code resides in /root/project/lib/main.js, the browserify generated path will ultimately be /lib/worker.js. Meaning /root/project/lib/worker.js should exist for node and http://[host]/lib/worker.js should exist for the browser.

The browser backend also exposes a browser flag for this situation.

Example:

const worker = new threads.Worker(threads.browser
                                ? 'http://.../' + path.basename(file)
                                : file);

To make self-execution easier, bthreads also exposes a threads.source property which refers to the main module's filename in node.js and the current script URL in the browser.

importScripts

In the browser, bthreads exposes a more useful version of importScripts.

const threads = require('bthreads');
const _ = threads.importScripts('https://unpkg.com/underscore/underscore.js');

This should work for any bundle exposed as UMD or CommonJS. Note that threads.importScripts behaves more like require in that it caches modules by URL. The cache is accessible through threads.importScripts.cache.

More about eval'd browser code

Note that if you are eval'ing some code inside a script you plan to bundle with browserify or webpack, require may get unintentionally transformed or overridden. This generally happens when you are calling toString on a defined function.

const threads = require('bthreads');

function myWorker() {
  const threads = require('bthreads');

  threads.parentPort.postMessage('foo');
}

const code = `(${myWorker})();`;
const worker = new threads.Worker(code, { eval: true });

The solution is to access global.require instead of require.

const threads = require('bthreads');

function myWorker() {
  const threads = global.require('bthreads');

  threads.parentPort.postMessage('foo');
}

const code = `(${myWorker})();`;
const worker = new threads.Worker(code, { eval: true });

Contribution and License Agreement

If you contribute code to this project, you are implicitly allowing your code to be distributed under the MIT license. You are also implicitly verifying that all code is your original work. </legalese>

License

• Copyright (c) 2019, Christopher Jeffrey (MIT License).

See LICENSE for more info.