Reactor

An Object Behavioral Pattern for

Demultiplexing and Dispatching Handles for Synchronous Events
Douglas C. Schmidt
[email protected]
Department of Computer Science
Washington University, St. Louis, MO1
An earlier version of this paper appeared as a chapter in
the book Pattern Languages of Program Design ISBN 0201-6073-4, edited by Jim Coplien and Douglas C. Schmidt
and published by Addison-Wesley, 1995.

CLIENT

DATABASE
PRINTER

1 Intent

CONNECTION
REQUEST

The Reactor design pattern handles service requests that are

delivered concurrently to an application by one or more
clients. Each service in an application may consist of
serveral methods and is represented by a separate event handler that is responsible for dispatching service-specific requests. Dispatching of event handlers is performed by an initiation dispatcher, which manages the registered event handlers. Demultiplexing of service requests is performed by a
synchronous event demultiplexer.

LOGGING
SERVER
SOCKET HANDLES

NETWORK

CONSOLE
CLIENT

LOGGING
RECORDS
LOGGING
RECORDS

CLIENT

SERVER

Figure 1: Distributed Logging Service

2 Also Known As
Dispatcher, Notifier

server. The server waits for these connection requests using

a handle factory that listens on an address known to clients.
When a connection request arrives, the handle factory establishes a connection between the client and the server by
creating a new handle that represents an endpoint of the connection. This handle is returned to the server, which then
waits for client service requests to arrive on the handle. Once
clients are connected, they can send logging records concurrently to the server. The server receives these records via the
connected socket handles.
Perhaps the most intuitive way to develop a concurrent
logging server is to use multiple threads that can process
multiple clients concurrently, as shown in Figure 2. This
approach synchronously accepts network connections and
spawns a thread-per-connection to handle client logging
records.
However, using multi-threading to implement the processing of logging records in the server fails to resolve the following forces:

3 Example
To illustrate the Reactor pattern, consider the event-driven
server for a distributed logging service shown in Figure 1.
Client applications use the logging service to record information about their status in a distributed environment. This status information commonly includes error notifications, debugging traces, and performance reports. Logging records
are sent to a central logging server, which can write the
records to various output devices, such as a console, a printer,
a file, or a network management database.
The logging server shown in Figure 1 handles logging
records and connection requests sent by clients. Logging
records and connection requests can arrive concurrently on
multiple handles. A handle identifies network communication resources managed within an OS.
The logging server communicates with clients using a
connection-oriented protocol, such as TCP [1]. Clients that
want to log data must first send a connection request to the

 Efficiency: Threading may lead to poor performance due

to context switching, synchronization, and data movement
[2];

1 This work was supported in part by a grant by Siemens.

 Adaptability: Integrating new or improved services,

such as changing message formats or adding server-side
caching, should incur minimal modifications and maintenance costs for existing code. For instance, implementing
new application services should not require modifications
to the generic event demultiplexing and dispatching mechanisms.

LOGGING SERVER
SERVER

THREAD1

1: accept ()
3: create()
Logging
Acceptor

THREAD2

THREAD3

5: recv()
6: write()
Logging
Handler

 Portability: Porting a server to a new OS platform

should not require significant effort.

Logging
Handler

2: connect()
CLIENT
A

6 Solution
4: send()
NETWORK

Integrate the synchronous demultiplexing of events and the

dispatching of their corresponding event handlers that process the events. In addition, decouple the applicationspecific dispatching and implementation of services from
the general-purpose event demultiplexing and dispatching
mechanisms.
For each service the application offers, introduce a separate Event Handler that processes certain types of
events. All Event Handlers implement the same interface. Event Handlers register with an Initiation
Dispatcher, which uses a Synchronous Event
Demultiplexer to wait for events to occur. When events
occur, the Synchronous Event Demultiplexer
notifies the Initiation Dispatcher, which synchronously calls back to the Event Handler associated
with the event. The Event Handler then dispatches the
event to the method that implements the requested service.

CLIENT
B

Figure 2: Multi-threaded Logging Server

 Programming simplicity: Threading may require complex concurrency control schemes;

 Portability: Threading is not available on all OS platforms.
As a result of these drawbacks, multi-threading is often not
the most efficient nor the least complex solution to develop a
concurrent logging server.

4 Context

7 Structure

A server application in a distributed system that receives

events from one or more clients concurrently.

The key participants in the Reactor pattern include the following:

Handles

5 Problem

 Identify resources that are managed by an OS.

These resources commonly include network connections, open files, timers, synchronization objects, etc.
Handles are used in the logging server to identify
socket endpoints so that a Synchronous Event
Demultiplexer can wait for events to occur on
them. The two types of events the logging server is interested in are connection events and read events, which
represent incoming client connections and logging data,
respectively. The logging server maintains a separate
connection for each client. Every connection is represented in the server by a socket handle.
Synchronous Event Demultiplexer

Server applications in a distributed system must handle multiple clients that send them service requests. Before invoking a specific service, however, the server application must
demultiplex and dispatch each incoming request to its corresponding service provider. Developing an effective server
mechanisms for demultiplexing and dispatching client requests requires the resolution of the following forces:

 Availability: The server must be available to handle incoming requests even if it is waiting for other requests to arrive. In particular, a server must not block indefinitely handling any single source of events at the exclusion of other
event sources since this may significantly delay the responseness to other clients.

 Blocks awaiting events to occur on a set of Handles.

It returns when it is possible to initiate an operation
on a Handle without blocking. A common demultiplexer for I/O events is select [1], which is an event
demultiplexing system call provided by the UNIX and
Win32 OS platforms. The select call indicates which

 Efficiency: A server must minimize latency, maximize

throughput, and avoid utilizing the CPU(s) unnecessarily.
 Programming simplicity: The design of a server should
simplify the use of suitable concurrency strategies.

8 Dynamics

Handles can have operations invoked on them synchronously without blocking the application process.

8.1 General Collaborations

Initiation Dispatcher

 Defines an interface for registering, removing, and

dispatching Event Handlers.
Ultimately, the
Synchronous Event Demultiplexer is responsible for waiting until new events occur. When
it detects new events, it informs the Initiation
Dispatcher to call back application-specific event
handlers. Common events include connection acceptance events, data input and output events, and timeout
events.

The following collaborations occur in the Reactor pattern:

 When an application registers a Concrete Event

Handler with the Initiation Dispatcher the
application indicates the type of event(s) this Event
Handler wants the Initiation Dispatcher to
notify it about when the event(s) occur on the associated
Handle.
 The Initiation Dispatcher requests each
Event Handler to pass back its internal Handle.
This Handle identifies the Event Handler to the
OS.

Event Handler

 Specifies an interface consisting of a hook method [3]

that abstractly represents the dispatching operation for
service-specific events. This method must be implemented by application-specific services.

 After all Event Handlers are registered, an application calls handle events to start the Initiation
Dispatchers event loop.
At this point, the
Initiation Dispatcher combines the Handle
from each registered Event Handler and uses the
Synchronous Event Demultiplexer to wait
for events to occur on these Handles. For instance, the TCP protocol layer uses the select synchronous event demultiplexing operation to wait for
client logging record events to arrive on connected
socket Handles.

Concrete Event Handler

 Implements the hook method, as well as the methods to process these events in an application-specific
manner. Applications register Concrete Event
Handlers with the Initiation Dispatcher to
process certain types of events. When these events arrive, the Initiation Dispatcher calls back the
hook method of the appropriate Concrete Event
Handler.

 The Synchronous Event Demultiplexer notifies the Initiation Dispatcher when a

Handle corresponding to an event source becomes
ready, e.g., that a TCP socket is ready for reading.

There are two Concrete Event Handlers in the

logging server: Logging Handler and Logging
Acceptor. The Logging Handler is responsible for receiving and processing logging records. The
Logging Acceptor creates and connects Logging
Handlers that process subsequent logging records
from clients.

 The Initiation Dispatcher triggers Event

Handler hook method in response to events on
the ready Handles.
When events occur, the
Initiation Dispatcher uses the Handles activated by the event sources as keys to locate and
dispatch the appropriate Event Handlers hook
method.

The structure of the participants of the Reactor pattern is

illustrated in the following OMT class diagram:

Initiation Dispatcher
handle_events()
register_handler(h)
remove_handler(h)
uses

Handle

select (handlers);
foreach h in handlers loop
h.handle_event(type)
end loop

handlers
1

N
owns

 The Initiation Dispatcher calls back to

the handle event hook method of the Event
Handler to perform application-specific functionality
in response to an event. The type of event that occurred
can be passed as a parameter to the method and used
internally by this method to perform additional servicespecific demultiplexing and dispatching. An alternative
dispatching approach is described in Section 9.4.

Event Handler
handle_event(type)
get_handle()

notifies

Synchronous Event
Demultiplexer
select()

Concrete
Event
Handler

The following interaction diagram illustrates the collaboration between application code and participants in the Reactor pattern:

INITIALIZATION
MODE

main
program
INITIALIZE
REGISTER HANDLER

EVENT HANDLING
MODE

EXTRACT HANDLE
RUN EVENT LOOP

callback :
Concrete
Event_Handler

Initiation
Dispatcher Handles

8. Logging Handler registers (8) its socket handle

with the Initiation Dispatcher and instructs
the dispatcher to notify it when the socket becomes
ready for reading.

Initiation_Dispatcher()
register_handler(callback, event_type)
get_handle()
handle_events()
select()

WAIT FOR EVENTS

DISPATCH
HANDLER(S)

7. The Logging Acceptor creates (7) a Logging

Handler to service the new client;

8.2.2 Client Sends Logging Record to a Reactive Logging Server

handle_event(event_type)

The second scenario shows the sequence of steps that the

reactive logging server takes to service a logging record.

8.2 Collaboration Scenarios

SERVER

The collaborations within the Reactor pattern for the logging

server can be illustrated with two scenarios. These scenarios
show how a logging server designed using reactive event dispatching handles connection requests and logging data from
multiple clients.

NETWORK
CLIENT
A

8.2.1 Client Connects to a Reactive Logging Server

The first scenario shows the steps taken when a client connects to the logging server.

CLIENT
B

LOGGING SERVER

SERVER

1: register
handler()

NETWORK
CLIENT

1: send()

LOGGING SERVER
Logging
Handler
2: handle
for A
event()
3: recv()
4: write()
5: return
Logging
Initiation
Handler
Dispatcher
for B

4: connect()

Logging
Acceptor 6: accept()
7: create()

5: handle
event()

Initiation
Dispatcher
2: handle_events()
3: select()

This sequence of steps can be summarized as follows:

1. The client sends (1) a logging record;
2. The Initiation Dispatcher notifies (2) the associated Logging Handler when a client logging
record is queued on its socket handle by OS;

Logging
Handler
8: register
handler()

3. The record is received (3) in a non-blocking manner

(steps 2 and 3 repeat until the logging record has been
received completely);
4. The Logging Handler processes the logging
record and writes (4) it to the standard output.

This sequence of steps can be summarized as follows:

5. The Logging Handler returns (5) control to the

Initiation Dispatchers event loop.

1. The logging server (1) registers the Logging

Acceptor with the Initiation Dispatcher to
handle connection requests;
2. The logging server invokes the handle events
method (2) of the Initiation Dispatcher;

9 Implementation

3. The Initiation Dispatcher invokes the synchronous event demultiplexing select (3) operation
to wait for connection requests or logging data to arrive;

This section describes how to implement the Reactor pattern

in C++. The implementation described below is influenced
by the reusable components provided in the ACE communication software framework [2].

4. A client connects (4) to the logging server;

5. The
Logging Acceptor
is
notified by the Initiation Dispatcher (5) of the
new connection request;

9.1 Select the Synchronous Event Demultiplexer Mechanism

6. The Logging Acceptor accepts (6) the new connection;

The Initiation Dispatcher uses a Synchronous

Event Demultiplexer to wait synchronously until one

or more events occur. This is commonly implemented using an OS event demultiplexing system call like select.
The select call indicates which Handle(s) are ready to
perform I/O operations without blocking the OS process in
which the application-specific service handlers reside. In
general, the Synchronous Event Demultiplexer
is based upon existing OS mechanisms, rather than developed by implementers of the Reactor pattern.

{
public:
// Register an Event_Handler of a particular
// Event_Type (e.g., READ_EVENT, ACCEPT_EVENT,
// etc.).
int register_handler (Event_Handler *eh,
Event_Type et);
// Remove an Event_Handler of a particular
// Event_Type.
int remove_handler (Event_Handler *eh,
Event_Type et);

9.2 Develop an Initiation Dispatcher

// Entry point into the reactive event loop.

int handle_events (Time_Value *timeout = 0);

The following are the steps necessary to develop the

Initiation Dispatcher:

};

Implement the Event Handler table: A Initiation

Dispatcher maintains a table of Concrete Event
Handlers. Therefore, the Initiation Dispatcher
provides methods to register and remove the handlers from
this table at run-time. This table can be implemented in various ways, e.g., using hashing, linear search, or direct indexing if handles are represented as a contiguous range of small
integral values.

Implement the necessary synchronization mechanisms:

If the Reactor pattern is used in an application with only one
thread of control it is possible to eliminate all synchronization. In this case, the Initiation Dispatcher serializes the Event Handler handle event hooks within
the applications process.
However, the Initiation Dispatcher can also
serve as a central event dispatcher in multi-threaded applications. In this case, critical sections within the Initiation
Dispatcher must be serialized to prevent race conditions
when modifying or activating shared state variables (such as
the table holding the Event Handlers). A common technique for preventing race conditions uses mutual exclusion
mechanisms like semaphores or mutex variables.
To prevent self-deadlock, mutual exclusion mechanisms
can use recursive locks [4]. Recursive locks hold prevent
deadlock when locks are held by the same thread across
Event Handler hook methods within the Initiation
Dispatcher. A recursive lock may be re-acquired
by the thread that owns the lock without blocking the
thread. This property is important since the Reactors
handle events method calls back on application-specific
Event Handlers. Application hook method code may
subsequently re-enter the Initiation Dispatcher
via its register handler and remove handler
methods.

Implement the event loop entry point: The entry point

into the event loop of the Initiation Dispatcher
should be provided by a handle events method. This
method controls the Handle demultiplexing provided by
the Synchronous Event Demultiplexer, as well as
performing Event Handler dispatching. Often, the main
event loop of the entire application is controlled by this entry
point.
When events occur, the Initiation Dispatcher
returns from the synchronous event demultiplexing call
and reacts by dispatching the Event Handlers
handle event hook method for each handle that is
ready. This hook method executes user-defined code and
returns control to the Initiation Dispatcher when it
completes.
The following C++ class illustrates the core methods on
the Initiation Dispatchers public interface:
enum Event_Type
// = TITLE
//
Types of events handled by the
//
Initiation_Dispatcher.
//
// = DESCRIPTION
//
These values are powers of two so
//
their bits can be efficiently ord
//
together to form composite values.
{
ACCEPT_EVENT = 01,
READ_EVENT = 02,
WRITE_EVENT = 04,
TIMEOUT_EVENT = 010,
SIGNAL_EVENT = 020,
CLOSE_EVENT = 040
};

9.3 Determine the Type of the Dispatching

Target
Two different types of Event Handlers can be associated with a Handle to serve as the target of an
Initiation Dispatchers dispatching logic. Implementations of the Reactor pattern can choose either one or
both of the following dispatching alternatives:

Event Handler objects: A common way to associate an

Event Handler with a Handle is to make the Event
Handler an object. For instance, the Reactor pattern implementation shown in Section 7 registers Event Handler
class Initiation_Dispatcher
subclass objects with an Initiation Dispatcher.
// = TITLE
Using
an object as the dispatching target makes it convenient
//
Demultiplex and dispatch Event_Handlers
//
in response to client requests.
to subclass Event Handlers in order to reuse and extend

existing components. In addition, objects integrate the state

and methods of a service into a single component.

class Event_Handler
{
public:
// Hook methods that are called back by
// the Initiation_Dispatcher to handle
// particular types of events.
virtual int handle_accept (void) = 0;
virtual int handle_input (void) = 0;
virtual int handle_output (void) = 0;
virtual int handle_timeout (void) = 0;
virtual int handle_close (void) = 0;

Event Handler functions: Another way to associate an

Event Handler with a Handle is to register a function
with the Initiation Dispatcher. Using functions as
the dispatching target makes it convenient to register callbacks without having to define a new class that inherits from
Event Handler.
The Adapter pattern [5] be employed to support both
objects and functions simultaneously. For instance, an
adapter could be defined using an event handler object that
holds a pointer to an event handler function. When the
handle event method was invoked on the event handler
adapter object, it could automatically forward the call to the
event handler function that it holds.

// Hook method that returns the underlying

// I/O Handle.
virtual Handle get_handle (void) const = 0;
};

The benefit of the multi-method interface is that it is

easy to selectively override methods in the base class and
avoid further demultiplexing, e.g., via switch or if statements, in the hook method. However, it requires the framework developer to anticipate the set of Event Handler
methods in advance. For instance, the various handle *
methods in the Event Handler interface above are tailored for I/O events available through the UNIX select
mechanism. However, this interface is not broad enough
to encompass all the types of events handled via the Win32
WaitForMultipleObjects mechanism [6].

9.4 Define the Event Handling Interface

Assuming that we use Event Handler objects rather than
functions, the next step is to define the interface of the
Event Handler. There are two approaches:
A single-method interface: The OMT diagram in Section 7 illustrates an implementation of the Event
Handler base class interface that contains a single
method, called handle event, which is used by the
Initiation Dispatcher to dispatch events. In this
case, the type of the event that has occurred is passed as a
parameter to the method.
The following C++ abstract base class illustrates the
single-method interface:

Both approaches described above are examples of the

hook method pattern described in [3] and the Factory Callback pattern described in [7]. The intent of these patterns is
to provide well-defined hooks that can be specialized by applications and called back by lower-level dispatching code.

class Event_Handler
// = TITLE
//
Abstract base class that serves as the
//
target of the Initiation_Dispatcher.
{
public:
// Hook method that is called back by the
// Initiation_Dispatcher to handle events.
virtual int handle_event (Event_Type et) = 0;
// Hook method that returns the underlying
// I/O Handle.
virtual Handle get_handle (void) const = 0;
};

The advantage of the single-method interface is that it is

possible to add new types of events without changing the interface. However, this approach encourages the use of switch
statements in the subclasss handle event method, which
limits its extensibility.
A multi-method interface: Another way to implement the
Event Handler
interface is to define separate virtual hook methods for each
type of event (such as handle input, handle output,
or handle timeout).
The following C++ abstract base class illustrates the
single-method interface:

9.5 Determine the Number of Initiation Dispatchers in an Application

Many applications can be structured using just one instance
of the Reactor pattern. In this case, the Initiation
Dispatcher can be implemented as a Singleton [5]. This
design is useful for centralizing event demultiplexing and
dispatching into a single location within an application.
However, some operating systems limit the number of
Handles that can be waited for within a single thread
of control. For instance, Win32 allows select and
WaitForMultipleObjects to wait for no more than 64
Handles in a single thread. In this case, it may be necessary to create multiple threads, each of which runs its own
instance of the Reactor pattern.
Note that Event Handlers are only serialized within
an instance of the Reactor pattern. Therefore, multiple
Event Handlers in multiple threads can run in parallel.
This configuration may necessitate the use of additional synchronization mechanisms if Event Handlers in different
threads access shared state.

9.6 Implement the Concrete Event Handlers

The concrete event handlers are typically created by application developers to perform specific services in response to

particular events. The developers must determine what processing to perform when the corresponding hook method is
invoked by the initiation dispatcher.
The following code implements the Concrete Event
Handlers for the logging server described in Section 3.
These handlers provide passive connection establishment
(Logging Acceptor) and data reception (Logging
Handler).

used to transfer data reliably between the client and the logging server.
The SOCK Acceptor and SOCK Stream classes used
to implement the logging server are part of the C++ socket
wrapper library provided by ACE [9]. These socket wrappers
encapsulate the SOCK Stream semantics of the socket interface within a portable and type-secure object-oriented interface. In the Internet domain, SOCK Stream sockets are
implemented using TCP.
The constructor for the Logging Acceptor registers
itself with the Initiation Dispatcher Singleton [5]
for ACCEPT events, as follows:

The Logging Acceptor class: This class is an example

of the Acceptor component of the Acceptor-Connector
pattern [8]. The Acceptor-Connector pattern decouples the
task of service initialization from the tasks performed after a
service is initialized. This pattern enables the applicationspecific portion of a service, such as the Logging
Handler, to vary independently of the mechanism used to
establish the connection.
A Logging Acceptor passively accepts connections from client applications and creates client-specific
Logging Handler objects, which receive and process
logging records from clients. The key methods and data
members in the Logging Acceptor class are defined below:

Logging_Acceptor::Logging_Acceptor
(const INET_Addr &addr)
: acceptor_ (addr)
{
// Register acceptor with the Initiation
// Dispatcher, which "double dispatches"
// the Logging_Acceptor::get_handle() method
// to obtain the HANDLE.
Initiation_Dispatcher::instance ()->
register_handler (this, ACCEPT_EVENT);
}

class Logging_Acceptor : public Event_Handler

// = TITLE
//
Handles client connection requests.
{
public:

Henceforth, whenever a client connection arrives, the

Initiation Dispatcher calls back to the Logging
Acceptors handle event method, as shown below:
void
Logging_Acceptor::handle_event (Event_Type et)
{
// Can only be called for an ACCEPT event.
assert (et == ACCEPT_EVENT);

// Initialize the acceptor_ endpoint and

// register with the Initiation Dispatcher.
Logging_Acceptor (const INET_Addr &addr);
// Factory method that accepts a new
// SOCK_Stream connection and creates a
// Logging_Handler object to handle logging
// records sent using the connection.
virtual void handle_event (Event_Type et);

SOCK_Stream new_connection;
// Accept the connection.
acceptor_.accept (new_connection);

// Get the I/O Handle (called by the

// Initiation Dispatcher when
// Logging_Acceptor is registered).
virtual HANDLE get_handle (void) const
{
return acceptor_.get_handle ();
}

// Create a new Logging Handler.

Logging_Handler *handler =
new Logging_Handler (new_connection);
}

The handle event method invokes the accept method

of the SOCK Acceptor to passively establish a SOCK
Stream. Once the SOCK Stream is connected with
the new client, a Logging Handler is allocated dynamically to process the logging requests. As shown
below, the Logging Handler registers itself with the
Initiation Dispatcher, which will demultiplex all
the logging records of its associated client to it.

private:
// Socket factory that accepts client
// connections.
SOCK_Acceptor acceptor_;
};

The Logging Acceptor class inherits from the Event

Handler base class. This enables an application to register the Logging Acceptor with an Initiation
Dispatcher.
The Logging Acceptor also contains an instance of
SOCK Acceptor. This is a concrete factory that enables
the Logging Acceptor to accept connection requests on
a passive mode socket that is listening to a communication
port. When a connection arrives from a client, the SOCK
Acceptor accepts the connection and produces a SOCK
Stream object. Henceforth, the SOCK Stream object is

The Logging Handler class: The logging server uses the

Logging Handler class shown below to receive logging
records sent by client applications:
class Logging_Handler : public Event_Handler
// = TITLE
//
Receive and process logging records
//
sent by a client application.
{
public:

9.7 Implement the Server

// Initialize the client stream.

Logging_Handler (SOCK_Stream &cs);

The logging server contains a single main function.

// Hook method that handles the reception
// of logging records from clients.
virtual void handle_event (Event_Type et);

The logging server main function: This function implements a single-threaded, concurrent logging server that waits
in the Initiation Dispatchers handle events
event loop.
As requests arrive from clients, the
Initiation Dispatcher invokes the appropriate
Concrete Event Handler hook methods, which accept connections and receive and process logging records.
The main entry point into the logging server is defined as
follows:

// Get the I/O Handle (called by the

// Initiation Dispatcher when
// Logging_Handler is registered).
virtual HANDLE get_handle (void) const
{
return peer_stream_.get_handle ();
}
private:
// Receives logging records from a client.
SOCK_Stream peer_stream_;
};

// Server port number.

const u_short PORT = 10000;
int
main (void)
{
// Logging server port number.
INET_Addr server_addr (PORT);

Logging Handler inherits from Event Handler,

which enables it to be registered with the Initiation
Dispatcher, as shown below:
Logging_Handler::Logging_Handler
(SOCK_Stream &cs)
: peer_stream_ (cs)
{
// Register with the dispatcher for
// READ events.
Initiation_Dispatcher::instance ()->
register_handler (this, READ_EVENT);
}

// Initialize logging server endpoint and

// register with the Initiation_Dispatcher.
Logging_Acceptor la (server_addr);
// Main event loop that handles client
// logging records and connection requests.
for (;;)
Initiation_Dispatcher::instance ()->
handle_events ();

Once its created, a Logging Handler registers itself

for READ events with the Initiation Dispatcher
Singleton. Henceforth, when a logging record arrives,
the Initiation Dispatcher automatically dispatches
the handle event method of the associated Logging
Handler, as shown below:

/* NOTREACHED */
return 0;
}

The main program creates a Logging Acceptor, whose

constructor initializes it with the port number of the logging server. The program then enters its main event-loop.
Subsequently, the Initiation Dispatcher Singleton
void
uses the select event demultiplexing system call to synLogging_Handler::handle_event (Event_Type et)
{
chronously wait for connection requests and logging records
if (et == READ_EVENT) {
to arrive from clients.
Log_Record log_record;
The following interaction diagram illustrates the collabopeer_stream_.recv ((void *) log_record, sizeof
log_record);
ration
between the objects participating in the logging server
example:
// Write logging record to standard output.
log_record.write (STDOUT);
}
else if (et == CLOSE_EVENT) {
peer_stream_.close ();
delete (void *) this;
}

Logging
Server
INITIALIZE

REGISTER HANDLER
FOR ACCEPTS
EXTRACT HANDLE

When a READ event occurs on a socket Handle,

the Initiation Dispatcher calls back to the
handle event method of the Logging Handler.
This method receives, processes, and writes the logging
record to the standard output ( STDOUT). Likewise, when
the client closes down the connection the Initiation
Dispatcher passes a CLOSE event, which informs the
Logging Handler to shut down its SOCK Stream and
delete itself.

START EVENT LOOP

FOREACH EVENT DO
CONNECTION EVENT
ACCEPT AND
CREATE HANDLER
REGISTER HANDLER
FOR INPUT
EXTRACT HANDLE
LOGGING RECORD

la :
Logging
Acceptor

lh :
Initiation
Logging
Dispatcher Handles
Handler
Initiation_Dispatcher()

register_handler(la, ACCEPT_EVENT)
get_handle()
handle_events()
select()
handle_event(ACCEPT_EVENT)
sock = acceptor_.accept()
lh = new Logging_Acceptor (sock);
register_handler(lh, READ_EVENT)
get_handle()
handle_event(READ_EVENT)

Separation of concerns: The Reactor pattern decouples application-independent demultiplexing and dispatching mechanisms from application-specific hook method
functionality. The application-independent mechanisms become reusable components that know how to demultiplex
events and dispatch the appropriate hook methods defined
by Event Handlers. In contrast, the application-specific
functionality in a hook method knows how to perform a particular type of service.

Once the Initiation Dispatcher object is initialized, it becomes the primary focus of the control flow within
the logging server. All subsequent activity is triggered by
hook methods on the Logging Acceptor and Logging
Handler objects registered with, and controlled by, the
Initiation Dispatcher.
When a connection request arrives on the network
connection, the Initiation Dispatcher calls back
the Logging Acceptor, which accepts the network
connection and creates a Logging Handler. This
Logging Handler then registers with the Initiation
Dispatcher for READ events. Thus, when a client sends
a logging record, the Initiation Dispatcher calls
back to the clients Logging Handler to process the incoming record from that client connection in the logging
servers single thread of control.

Improve modularity, reusability, and configurability of

event-driven applications: The pattern decouples application functionality into separate classes. For instance, there
are two separate classes in the logging server: one for establishing connections and another for receiving and processing logging records. This decoupling enables the reuse
of the connection establishment class for different types of
connection-oriented services (such as file transfer, remote
login, and video-on-demand). Therefore, modifying or extending the functionality of the logging server only affects
the implementation of the logging handler class.

10 Known Uses
The Reactor pattern has been used in many object-oriented
frameworks, including the following:

Improves application portability: The Initiation

Dispatchers interface can be reused independently of
the OS system calls that perform event demultiplexing.
These system calls detect and report the occurrence of one
or more events that may occur simultaneously on multiple sources of events. Common sources of events may include I/O handles, timers, and synchronization objects. On
UNIX platforms, the event demultiplexing system calls are
called select and poll [1]. In the Win32 API [16], the
WaitForMultipleObjects system call performs event
demultiplexing.

 InterViews: The Reactor pattern is implemented by

the InterViews [10] window system distribution, where
it is known as the Dispatcher.
The InterViews
Dispatcher is used to define an applications main event
loop and to manage connections to one or more physical GUI
displays.
 ACE Framework: The ACE framework [11] uses the
Reactor pattern as its central event demultiplexer and dispatcher.

Provides coarse-grained concurrency control: The Reactor pattern serializes the invocation of event handlers at
the level of event demultiplexing and dispatching within
a process or thread. Serialization at the Initiation
Dispatcher level often eliminates the need for more complicated synchronization or locking within an application
process.

The Reactor pattern has been used in many commercial

projects, including:

 CORBA ORBs: The ORB Core layer in many singlethreaded implementations of CORBA [12] (such as VisiBroker, Orbix, and TAO [13]) use the Reactor pattern to demultiplex and dispatch ORB requests to servants.
 Ericsson EOS Call Center Management System: This
system uses the Reactor pattern to manage events routed by
Event Servers [14] between PBXs and supervisors in a Call
Center Management system.

11.2 Liabilities
The Reactor pattern has the following liabilities:
Restricted applicability: The Reactor pattern can only be
applied efficiently if the OS supports Handles. It is possible to emulate the semantics of the Reactor pattern using
multiple threads within the Initiation Dispatcher,
e.g. one thread for each Handle. Whenever there are events
available on a handle, its associated thread will read the event
and place it on a queue that is processed sequentially by the
initiation dispatcher. However, this design is typically very
inefficient since it serializes all Event Handlers, thereby
increasing synchronization and context switching overhead
without enhancing parallelism.

 Project Spectrum: The high-speed medical image transfer subsystem of project Spectrum [15] uses the Reactor pattern in a medical imaging system.

11 Consequences
11.1 Benefits
The Reactor pattern offers the following benefits:

Active Object pattern when threads are not available or when

the overhead and complexity of threading is undesirable.
An implementation of the Reactor pattern provides a Facade [5] for event demultiplexing. A Facade is an interface
that shields applications from complex object relationships
within a subsystem.

Non-preemptive: In a single-threaded application process, Event Handlers are not preempted while they are
executing. This implies that an Event Handler should
not perform blocking I/O on an individual Handle since
this will block the entire process and impede the responsiveness for clients connected to other Handles. Therefore, for long-duration operations, such as transferring multimegabyte medical images [15], the Active Object pattern
[17] may be more effective. An Active Object uses multithreading or multi-processing to complete its tasks in parallel
with the Initiation Dispatchers main event-loop.

References
[1] W. R. Stevens, UNIX Network Programming, First Edition.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990.
[2] D. C. Schmidt, ACE: an Object-Oriented Framework for
Developing Distributed Applications, in Proceedings of the
6th USENIX C++ Technical Conference, (Cambridge, Massachusetts), USENIX Association, April 1994.

Hard to debug: Applications written with the Reactor pattern can be hard to debug since the inverted flow of control oscillates between the framework infrastructure and the
method callbacks on application-specific handlers. This increases the difficulty of single-stepping through the runtime behavior of a framework within a debugger since application developers may not understand or have access to the
framework code. This is similar to the problems encountered
trying to debug a compiler lexical analyzer and parser written with LEX and YACC. In these applications, debugging
is straightforward when the thread of control is within the
user-defined action routines. Once the thread of control returns to the generated Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA)
skeleton, however, it is hard to follow the program logic.

[3] W. Pree, Design Patterns for Object-Oriented Software Development. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994.
[4] D. C. Schmidt, An OO Encapsulation of Lightweight OS
Concurrency Mechanisms in the ACE Toolkit, Tech. Rep.
WUCS-95-31, Washington University, St. Louis, September
1995.
[5] E. Gamma, R. Helm, R. Johnson, and J. Vlissides, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995.
[6] D. C. Schmidt and P. Stephenson, Experiences Using Design
Patterns to Evolve System Software Across Diverse OS Platforms, in Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on
Object-Oriented Programming, (Aarhus, Denmark), ACM,
August 1995.

12 See Also

[7] S. Berczuk, A Pattern for Separating Assembly and Processing, in Pattern Languages of Program Design (J. O. Coplien
and D. C. Schmidt, eds.), Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,
1995.

The Reactor pattern is related to the Observer pattern [5],

where all dependents are informed when a single subject
changes. In the Reactor pattern, a single handler is informed
when an event of interest to the handler occurs on a source
of events. The Reactor pattern is generally used to demultiplex events from multiple sources to their associated event
handlers, whereas an Observer is often associated with only
a single source of events.
The Reactor pattern is related to the Chain of Responsibility (CoR) pattern [5], where a request is delegated to the responsible service provider. The Reactor pattern differs from
the CoR pattern since the Reactor associates a specific Event
Handler with a particular source of events, whereas the CoR
pattern searches the chain to locate the first matching Event
Handler.
The Reactor pattern can be considered a synchronous variant of the asynchronous Proactor pattern [18]. The Proactor supports the demultiplexing and dispatching of multiple
event handlers that are triggered by the completion of asynchronous events. In contrast, the Reactor pattern is responsible for demultiplexing and dispatching of multiple event
handlers that are triggered when it is possible to initiate an
operation synchronously without blocking.
The Active Object pattern [17] decouples method execution from method invocation to simplify synchronized access
to a shared resource by methods invoked in different threads
of control. The Reactor pattern is often used in place of the

[8] D. C. Schmidt, Acceptor and Connector: Design Patterns for

Initializing Communication Services, in Pattern Languages
of Program Design (R. Martin, F. Buschmann, and D. Riehle,
eds.), Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
[9] I. Pyarali, T. H. Harrison, and D. C. Schmidt, Design and
Performance of an Object-Oriented Framework for HighPerformance Electronic Medical Imaging, in Proceedings
of the 2nd Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies and
Systems, (Toronto, Canada), USENIX, June 1996.
[10] M. A. Linton and P. R. Calder, The Design and Implementation of InterViews, in Proceedings of the USENIX C++
Workshop, November 1987.
[11] D. C. Schmidt, The ACE Framework. Available from
www.cs.wustl.edu/ schmidt/ACE.html, 1997.

[12] Object Management Group, The Common Object Request

Broker: Architecture and Specification, 2.0 ed., July 1995.
[13] D. C. Schmidt, D. L. Levine, and S. Mungee, The Design and
Performance of Real-Time Object Request Brokers, Computer Communications, vol. 21, pp. 294324, Apr. 1998.
[14] D. C. Schmidt and T. Suda, An Object-Oriented Framework
for Dynamically Configuring Extensible Distributed Communication Systems, IEE/BCS Distributed Systems Engineering
Journal (Special Issue on Configurable Distributed Systems),
vol. 2, pp. 280293, December 1994.
[15] I. Pyarali, T. H. Harrison, and D. C. Schmidt, Design and
Performance of an Object-Oriented Framework for HighPerformance Electronic Medical Imaging, USENIX Computing Systems, vol. 9, November/December 1996.

10

[16] H. Custer, Inside Windows NT. Redmond, Washington: Microsoft Press, 1993.
[17] R. G. Lavender and D. C. Schmidt, Active Object: an Object
Behavioral Pattern for Concurrent Programming, in Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference on the Pattern Languages
of Programs, (Monticello, Illinois), pp. 17, September 1995.
[18] T. Harrison, I. Pyarali, D. C. Schmidt, and T. Jordan, Proactor An Object Behavioral Pattern for Dispatching Asynchronous Event Handlers, in The 4th Pattern Languages of
Programming Conference (Washington University technical
report #WUCS-97-34), September 1997.

11