Symmentric Coroutine in Lua

Symmentric Coroutine in Lua

1 Symmetric Coroutine

Lua支持asymmetric coroutine。对于symmetric coroutine，名为Coroutines in Lua的一篇论文，提供了如下的解决方案：

coro = {}
coro.main = function() end
coro.current = coro.main

function coro.create(f) 
  return coroutine.wrap(function(val) return nil, f(val) end)
end

function coro.transfer(k, val)
  if coro.current ~= coro.main then
    return coroutine.yield(k, val)
  else
    while k do
      coro.current = k
      if k == coro.main then
        return val
      end
      k, val = k(val)
    end
    error("coroutine ended without transfering control...")
  end
end

代码虽然不长，但是十分精致。通过yield/resume，以及一个dipatching循环，巧妙地实现了symmetric coroutine。此外在Revisiting Coroutines论文中，甚至用asymmetric coroutine实现了one-shot continuation。

2 Reference

Coroutines in Lua Ana L´ucia de Moura , Noemi Rodriguez , Roberto Ierusalimschy
Revisiting Coroutines Ana L´ucia de Moura and Roberto Ierusalimschy