18.5. asyncio — Asynchronous I/O, event loop, coroutines and tasks

New in version 3.4.

Source code: Lib/asyncio/

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This module provides infrastructure for writing single-threaded concurrent code using coroutines, multiplexing I/O access over sockets and other resources, running network clients and servers, and other related primitives. Here is a more detailed list of the package contents:

• a pluggable event loop with various system-specific implementations;
• transport and protocol abstractions (similar to those in Twisted);
• concrete support for TCP, UDP, SSL, subprocess pipes, delayed calls, and others (some may be system-dependent);
• a Future class that mimics the one in the concurrent.futures module, but adapted for use with the event loop;
• coroutines and tasks based on yield from (PEP 380), to help write concurrent code in a sequential fashion;
• cancellation support for Futures and coroutines;
• synchronization primitives for use between coroutines in a single thread, mimicking those in the threading module;
• an interface for passing work off to a threadpool, for times when you absolutely, positively have to use a library that makes blocking I/O calls.

Asynchronous programming is more complex than classical “sequential” programming: see the Develop with asyncio page which lists common traps and explains how to avoid them. Enable the debug mode during development to detect common issues.

Table of contents:

• 18.5.1. Base Event Loop
  • 18.5.1.1. Run an event loop
  • 18.5.1.2. Calls
  • 18.5.1.3. Delayed calls
  • 18.5.1.4. Futures
  • 18.5.1.5. Tasks
  • 18.5.1.6. Creating connections
  • 18.5.1.7. Creating listening connections
  • 18.5.1.8. Watch file descriptors
  • 18.5.1.9. Low-level socket operations
  • 18.5.1.10. Resolve host name
  • 18.5.1.11. Connect pipes
  • 18.5.1.12. UNIX signals
  • 18.5.1.13. Executor
  • 18.5.1.14. Error Handling API
  • 18.5.1.15. Debug mode
  • 18.5.1.16. Server
  • 18.5.1.17. Handle
  • 18.5.1.18. Event loop examples
    • 18.5.1.18.1. Hello World with call_soon()
    • 18.5.1.18.2. Display the current date with call_later()
    • 18.5.1.18.3. Watch a file descriptor for read events
    • 18.5.1.18.4. Set signal handlers for SIGINT and SIGTERM
• 18.5.2. Event loops
  • 18.5.2.1. Event loop functions
  • 18.5.2.2. Available event loops
  • 18.5.2.3. Platform support
    • 18.5.2.3.1. Windows
    • 18.5.2.3.2. Mac OS X
  • 18.5.2.4. Event loop policies and the default policy
  • 18.5.2.5. Event loop policy interface
  • 18.5.2.6. Access to the global loop policy
• 18.5.3. Tasks and coroutines
  • 18.5.3.1. Coroutines
    • 18.5.3.1.1. Example: Hello World coroutine
    • 18.5.3.1.2. Example: Coroutine displaying the current date
    • 18.5.3.1.3. Example: Chain coroutines
  • 18.5.3.2. InvalidStateError
  • 18.5.3.3. TimeoutError
  • 18.5.3.4. Future
    • 18.5.3.4.1. Example: Future with run_until_complete()
    • 18.5.3.4.2. Example: Future with run_forever()
  • 18.5.3.5. Task
    • 18.5.3.5.1. Example: Parallel execution of tasks
  • 18.5.3.6. Task functions
• 18.5.4. Transports and protocols (callback based API)
  • 18.5.4.1. Transports
    • 18.5.4.1.1. BaseTransport
    • 18.5.4.1.2. ReadTransport
    • 18.5.4.1.3. WriteTransport
    • 18.5.4.1.4. DatagramTransport
    • 18.5.4.1.5. BaseSubprocessTransport
  • 18.5.4.2. Protocols
    • 18.5.4.2.1. Protocol classes
    • 18.5.4.2.2. Connection callbacks
    • 18.5.4.2.3. Streaming protocols
    • 18.5.4.2.4. Datagram protocols
    • 18.5.4.2.5. Flow control callbacks
    • 18.5.4.2.6. Coroutines and protocols
  • 18.5.4.3. Protocol examples
    • 18.5.4.3.1. TCP echo client protocol
    • 18.5.4.3.2. TCP echo server protocol
    • 18.5.4.3.3. UDP echo client protocol
    • 18.5.4.3.4. UDP echo server protocol
    • 18.5.4.3.5. Register an open socket to wait for data using a protocol
• 18.5.5. Streams (coroutine based API)
  • 18.5.5.1. Stream functions
  • 18.5.5.2. StreamReader
  • 18.5.5.3. StreamWriter
  • 18.5.5.4. StreamReaderProtocol
  • 18.5.5.5. IncompleteReadError
  • 18.5.5.6. LimitOverrunError
  • 18.5.5.7. Stream examples
    • 18.5.5.7.1. TCP echo client using streams
    • 18.5.5.7.2. TCP echo server using streams
    • 18.5.5.7.3. Get HTTP headers
    • 18.5.5.7.4. Register an open socket to wait for data using streams
• 18.5.6. Subprocess
  • 18.5.6.1. Windows event loop
  • 18.5.6.2. Create a subprocess: high-level API using Process
  • 18.5.6.3. Create a subprocess: low-level API using subprocess.Popen
  • 18.5.6.4. Constants
  • 18.5.6.5. Process
  • 18.5.6.6. Subprocess and threads
  • 18.5.6.7. Subprocess examples
    • 18.5.6.7.1. Subprocess using transport and protocol
    • 18.5.6.7.2. Subprocess using streams
• 18.5.7. Synchronization primitives
  • 18.5.7.1. Locks
    • 18.5.7.1.1. Lock
    • 18.5.7.1.2. Event
    • 18.5.7.1.3. Condition
  • 18.5.7.2. Semaphores
    • 18.5.7.2.1. Semaphore
    • 18.5.7.2.2. BoundedSemaphore
• 18.5.8. Queues
  • 18.5.8.1. Queue
  • 18.5.8.2. PriorityQueue
  • 18.5.8.3. LifoQueue
    • 18.5.8.3.1. Exceptions
• 18.5.9. Develop with asyncio
  • 18.5.9.1. Debug mode of asyncio
  • 18.5.9.2. Cancellation
  • 18.5.9.3. Concurrency and multithreading
  • 18.5.9.4. Handle blocking functions correctly
  • 18.5.9.5. Logging
  • 18.5.9.6. Detect coroutine objects never scheduled
  • 18.5.9.7. Detect exceptions never consumed
  • 18.5.9.8. Chain coroutines correctly
  • 18.5.9.9. Pending task destroyed
  • 18.5.9.10. Close transports and event loops

See also

The asyncio module was designed in PEP 3156. For a motivational primer on transports and protocols, see PEP 3153.