asio-grpc

An Executor, Networking TS and std::execution interface to grpc::CompletionQueue for writing asynchronous gRPC clients and servers using C++20 coroutines, Boost.Coroutines, Asio's stackless coroutines, callbacks, sender/receiver and more.

Features

• Asio ExecutionContext compatible wrapper around grpc::CompletionQueue
• Executor and Networking TS requirements fulfilling associated executor
• Support for all RPC types: unary, client-streaming, server-streaming and bidirectional-streaming with any mix of Asio CompletionToken as well as TypedSender, including allocator customization
• Support for asynchronously waiting for grpc::Alarms including cancellation through cancellation_slots and StopTokens
• Initial support for std::execution concepts through libunifex and Asio: schedule, connect, submit, scheduler, typed_sender and more
• Experimental support for Golang/Rust select-style programming with the help of cancellation safety
• No-Boost version with standalone Asio
• No-Asio version with libunifex
• CMake function to generate gRPC source files: asio_grpc_protobuf_generate

Example

• Server side 'hello world':

std::unique_ptr<grpc::Server> server;

grpc::ServerBuilder builder;
agrpc::GrpcContext grpc_context{builder.AddCompletionQueue()};
builder.AddListeningPort(host, grpc::InsecureServerCredentials());
helloworld::Greeter::AsyncService service;
builder.RegisterService(&service);
server = builder.BuildAndStart();

boost::asio::co_spawn(
    grpc_context,
    [&]() -> boost::asio::awaitable<void>
    {
        grpc::ServerContext server_context;
        helloworld::HelloRequest request;
        grpc::ServerAsyncResponseWriter<helloworld::HelloReply> writer{&server_context};
        co_await agrpc::request(&helloworld::Greeter::AsyncService::RequestSayHello, service, server_context,
                                request, writer);
        helloworld::HelloReply response;
        response.set_message("Hello " + request.name());
        co_await agrpc::finish(writer, response, grpc::Status::OK);
    },
    boost::asio::detached);

grpc_context.run();

^{snippet source | anchor}

More examples for things like streaming RPCs, double-buffered file transfer with io_uring, libunifex-based coroutines and sharing a thread with an io_context can be found in the example directory.

Requirements

Tested by CI:

• gRPC 1.44.0, 1.16.1 (older versions might work as well)
• Boost 1.79.0 (min. 1.74.0)
• Standalone Asio 1.17.0 (min. 1.17.0)
• libunifex 2022-02-09
• MSVC 19.31 (Visual Studio 17 2022)
• GCC 8.4.0, 9.3.0, 10.3.0, 11.1.0
• Clang 10.0.0, 11.0.0, 12.0.0
• AppleClang 13.0.0.13000029
• C++17 and C++20

For MSVC compilers and asio-grpc before v1.6.0 the following compile definitions need to be set:

BOOST_ASIO_HAS_DEDUCED_REQUIRE_MEMBER_TRAIT
BOOST_ASIO_HAS_DEDUCED_EXECUTE_MEMBER_TRAIT
BOOST_ASIO_HAS_DEDUCED_EQUALITY_COMPARABLE_TRAIT
BOOST_ASIO_HAS_DEDUCED_QUERY_MEMBER_TRAIT
BOOST_ASIO_HAS_DEDUCED_QUERY_STATIC_CONSTEXPR_MEMBER_TRAIT
BOOST_ASIO_HAS_DEDUCED_PREFER_MEMBER_TRAIT

When using standalone Asio then omit the BOOST_ prefix.

Usage

The library can be added to a CMake project using either add_subdirectory or find_package. Once set up, include the individual headers from the agrpc/ directory or the combined header:

#include <agrpc/asioGrpc.hpp>

find_package(gRPC)
find_package(Boost)
add_subdirectory(/path/to/repository/root)
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC gRPC::grpc++ asio-grpc::asio-grpc Boost::headers)

find_package(gRPC)
find_package(asio)
add_subdirectory(/path/to/repository/root)
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC gRPC::grpc++ asio-grpc::asio-grpc-standalone-asio asio::asio)

find_package(gRPC)
find_package(unifex)
add_subdirectory(/path/to/repository/root)
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC gRPC::grpc++ asio-grpc::asio-grpc-unifex unifex::unifex)

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/desired/installation/directory .
cmake --build build --target install

# Make sure CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH contains /desired/installation/directory
find_package(asio-grpc)
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC asio-grpc::asio-grpc)

# Make sure CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH contains /desired/installation/directory
find_package(asio-grpc)
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC asio-grpc::asio-grpc-standalone-asio)

# Make sure CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH contains /desired/installation/directory
find_package(asio-grpc)
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC asio-grpc::asio-grpc-unifex)

{
    "name": "your_app",
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "dependencies": [
        "asio-grpc",
        // To use the Boost.Asio backend add
        // "boost-asio",
        // To use the standalone Asio backend add
        // "asio",
        // To use the libunifex backend add
        // "libunifex"
    ]
}

find_package(asio-grpc)
# Using the Boost.Asio backend
target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC asio-grpc::asio-grpc)
# Or use the standalone Asio backend
#target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC asio-grpc::asio-grpc-standalone-asio)
# Or use the libunifex backend
#target_link_libraries(your_app PUBLIC asio-grpc::asio-grpc-unifex)

CMake Options

ASIO_GRPC_USE_BOOST_CONTAINER - Use Boost.Container instead of <memory_resource>.

ASIO_GRPC_DISABLE_AUTOLINK - Set before using find_package(asio-grpc) to prevent asio-grpcConfig.cmake from finding and setting up interface link libraries.

Performance

asio-grpc is part of grpc_bench. Head over there to compare its performance against other libraries and languages.

Results from the helloworld unary RPC
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz, Linux, Boost 1.78, gRPC 1.45.0, asio-grpc v1.5.0, jemalloc 5.2.1

Documentation

API reference

The main workhorses of this library are the agrpc::GrpcContext and its executor_type - agrpc::GrpcExecutor.

The agrpc::GrpcContext implements asio::execution_context and can be used as an argument to Asio functions that expect an ExecutionContext like asio::spawn.

Likewise, the agrpc::GrpcExecutor satisfies the Executor and Networking TS and Scheduler requirements and can therefore be used in places where Asio/libunifex expects an Executor or Scheduler.

The API for RPCs is modeled closely after the asynchronous, tag-based API of gRPC. As an example, the equivalent for grpc::ClientAsyncReader<helloworld::HelloReply>.Read(helloworld::HelloReply*, void*) would be agrpc::read(grpc::ClientAsyncReader<helloworld::HelloReply>&, helloworld::HelloReply&, CompletionToken).

Instead of the void* tag in the gRPC API the functions in this library expect a CompletionToken. Asio comes with several CompletionTokens already: C++20 coroutine, stackless coroutine, callback and Boost.Coroutine. There is also a special token created by agrpc::use_sender(scheduler) that causes RPC functions to return a TypedSender.

If you are interested in learning more about the implementation details of this library then check out this blog article.

grpc::ServerBuilder builder;
agrpc::GrpcContext grpc_context{builder.AddCompletionQueue()};

agrpc::GrpcContext grpc_context{std::make_unique<grpc::CompletionQueue>()};

grpc_context.run();
server->Shutdown();
}  // grpc_context is destructed here before the server

std::optional guard{asio::require(grpc_context.get_executor(), asio::execution::outstanding_work_t::tracked)};

What users are saying

Asio-grpc abstracts away the implementation details of asynchronous grpc handling: crafting working code is easier, faster, less prone to errors and considerably more fun. At 3YOURMIND we reliably use asio-grpc in production since its very first release, allowing our developers to effortlessly implement low-latency/high-throughput asynchronous data transfer in time critical applications.

@3YOURMIND

Our project is a real-time distributed motion capture system that uses your framework to stream data back and forward between multiple machines. Previously I have tried to build a bidirectional streaming framework from scratch using only gRPC. However, it's not maintainable and error-prone due to a large amount of service and streaming code. As a developer whose experienced both raw grpc and asio-grpc, I can tell that your framework is a real a game-changer for writing grpc code in C++. It has made my life much easier. I really appreciate the effort you have put into this project and your superior skills in designing c++ template code.

@khanhha