chi-w-ng / agents

Dart package that conveniently wraps an isolate, ports and state for easy isolates.

Isolate Agents

Description

Isolate Agents adds a new class, Agent, which is a proper implementation of the Actor model for Dart. Where Isolates have no mechanism for communication, Agents do. It is inspired by Clojure's agents.

Example usage

import 'package:isolate_agents/isolate_agents.dart';

void main() async {
  Agent<int> agent = await Agent.create(() => 1);
  // The following add operation is executed in the Agent's isolate.
  agent.update((int x) => x + 1);
  assert(2 == await agent.exit());
}

Why?

After writing Dart code for a couple of years I realized I was writing the same code over and over again in order to be able to use Isolates. Isolates don't fully implement the Actor model so a handshake of SendPort and a protocol needs to be devised for each non-trivial usage of Isolates. Agents factor all that logic into a reusable package, eliminating the SendPort handshake and standardizing the protocol.