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+# Stop Group
+
+A stop group is meant to help cleanly shut down a component that uses multiple goroutines. 
+
+
+## The Problem
+
+A shutdown typically works as follows:
+
+- a component receives a shutdown signal
+- the component passes the shutdown signal to each outstanding goroutine
+- each goroutine stops whatever it is doing and returns
+- once all the goroutines have returned, the component does any final cleanup and signals that it is done
+
+There are several gotchas in this process:
+
+- each goroutine must be tracked, so all can be stopped
+- the component should not expose implementation details about how many goroutines it uses and how they are managed
+- goroutines may be blocked by a read on a channel. they need to be unblocked during shutdown
+- goroutines may take a while to finish, and may finish in any order. component shutdown is not complete until all goroutines finish
+- using a channel to send the shutdown signal is complicated (doing things in the correct order, closing an already-closed channel, etc)
+
+
+## The Solution
+
+The solution is a stop group. A stop group is a combination of a `sync.WaitGroup` and a cancelable `context`. Here's how it works:
+
+```
+grp := stop.New()
+action := func() { ... }
+```
+
+All goroutines are started in the start group.
+
+```
+grp.Add(1)
+go func() {
+  defer grp.Done()
+  action()
+}
+```
+
+
+Any goroutine that may be blocked by a channel read has a simple way of unblocking on shutdown
+
+```
+for {
+  select {
+  case text := <-actionCh:
+    fmt.Printf("Got some text: %s", text)
+  case <-grp.Ch():
+    return
+  }
+}
+```
+
+
+Shutting down synchronously is easy
+
+```
+grp.StopAndWait()
+```
+
+
+## Example
+
+```
+type Server struct {
+	grp   *stop.Group
+}
+
+func NewServer() *Server {
+	return &Server{
+		grp:     stop.New(),
+	}
+}
+
+func (s *Server) Shutdown() {
+	s.grp.StopAndWait()
+}
+
+func (s *Server) Start(address string) error {
+	l, err := net.Listen(network, address)
+	if err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
+	log.Println("listening on " + address)
+
+	s.grp.Add(1)
+	go func() {
+		defer s.grp.Done()
+		<-s.grp.Ch()
+		err := l.Close()
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Errorln(err)
+		}
+	}()
+
+	s.grp.Add(1)
+	go func() {
+		defer s.grp.Done()
+		for {
+			select {
+			case <-s.grp.Ch():
+				return
+			case <-time.Tick(10 * time.Second):
+				log.Println("still running")
+			}
+		}
+	}()
+
+	s.grp.Add(1)
+	go func() {
+		defer s.grp.Done()
+		s.listenAndServe(l)
+	}()
+
+	return nil
+}
+
+```