summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorSteve Holden <steve@holdenweb.com>2002-07-03 18:36:39 (GMT)
committerSteve Holden <steve@holdenweb.com>2002-07-03 18:36:39 (GMT)
commitb1af86a1d7ada842ede1d5ea02a9a04f3939b8ca (patch)
treecbc4c839a75285da08a7fdb71e646b108812dd50 /Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex
parentdf872a20525dbc69e398a1a30ce416327eed8b0b (diff)
downloadcpython-b1af86a1d7ada842ede1d5ea02a9a04f3939b8ca.zip
cpython-b1af86a1d7ada842ede1d5ea02a9a04f3939b8ca.tar.gz
cpython-b1af86a1d7ada842ede1d5ea02a9a04f3939b8ca.tar.bz2
Revise asyncore documentation and document asynchat for the first time.
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex')
-rw-r--r--Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex254
1 files changed, 254 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex b/Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eea4f18
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,254 @@
+\section{\module{asynchat} ---
+ Asynchronous socket command/response handler}
+
+\declaremodule{standard}{asynchat}
+\modulesynopsis{Support for asynchronous command/response protocols.}
+\moduleauthor{Sam Rushing}{rushing@nightmare.com}
+\sectionauthor{Steve Holden}{sholden@holdenweb.com}
+
+This module builds on the \refmodule{asyncore} infrastructure,
+simplifying asynchronous clients and servers and making it easier to
+handle protocols whose elements are terminated by arbitrary strings, or
+are of variable length. \refmodule{asynchat} defines the abstract class
+\class{async_chat} that you subclass, providing implementations of the
+\method{collect_incoming_data()} and \method{found_terminator()}
+methods. It uses the same asynchronous loop as \refmodule{asyncore}, and
+the two types of channel, \class{asyncore.despatcher} and
+\class{asynchat.async_chat}, can freely be mixed in the channel map.
+Typically an \class{asyncore.despatcher} server channel generates new
+\class{asynchat.async_chat} channel objects as it receives incoming
+connection requests.
+
+\begin{classdesc}{async_chat}{}
+ This class is an abstract subclass of \class{asyncore.despatcher}. To make
+ practical use of the code you must subclass \class{async_chat}, providing
+ meaningful \method{collect_incoming_data()} and \method{found_terminator()}
+ methods. The \class{asyncore.despatcher} methods can be
+ used, although not all make sense in a message/response context.
+
+ Like \class{asyncore.despatcher}, \class{async_chat} defines a set of events
+ that are generated by an analysis of socket conditions after a
+ \cfunction{select()} call. Once the polling loop has been started the
+ \class{async_chat} object's methods are called by the event-processing
+ framework with no action on the part of the programmer.
+
+ Unlike \class{asyncore.despatcher}, \class{async_chat} allows you to define
+ a first-in-first-out queue (fifo) of \emph{producers}. A producer need have
+ only one method, \method{more()}, which should return data to be transmitted
+ on the channel. The producer indicates exhaustion (\emph{i.e.} that it contains
+ no more data) by having its \method{more()} method return the empty string. At
+ this point the \class{async_chat} object removes the producer from the fifo
+ and starts using the next producer, if any. When the producer fifo is empty
+ the \method{handle_write()} method does nothing. You use the channel object's
+ \method{set_terminator()} method to describe how to recognize the end
+ of, or an important breakpoint in, an incoming transmission from the
+ remote endpoint.
+
+ To build a functioning \class{async_chat} subclass your
+ input methods \method{collect_incoming_data()} and
+ \method{found_terminator()} must handle the data that the channel receives
+ asynchronously. The methods are described below.
+\end{classdesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{close_when_done}{}
+ Pushes a \code{None} on to the producer fifo. When this producer is
+ popped off the fifo it causes the channel to be closed.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{collect_incoming_data}{data}
+ Called with \var{data} holding an arbitrary amount of received data.
+ The default method, which must be overridden, raises a \exception{NotImplementedError} exception.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{discard_buffers}{}
+ In emergencies this method will discard any data held in the input and/or
+ output buffers and the producer fifo.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{found_terminator}{}
+ Called when the incoming data stream matches the termination condition
+ set by \method{set_terminator}. The default method, which must be overridden,
+ raises a \exception{NotImplementedError} exception. The buffered input data should
+ be available via an instance attribute.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{get_terminator}{}
+ Returns the current terminator for the channel.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_close}{}
+ Called when the channel is closed. The default method silently closes
+ the channel's socket.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_read}{}
+ Called when a read event fires on the channel's socket in the
+ asynchronous loop. The default method checks for the termination
+ condition established by \method{set_terminator()}, which can be either
+ the appearance of a particular string in the input stream or the receipt
+ of a particular number of characters. When the terminator is found,
+ \method{handle_read} calls the \method{found_terminator()} method after
+ calling \method{collect_incoming_data()} with any data preceding the
+ terminating condition.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_write}{}
+ Called when the application may write data to the channel.
+ The default method calls the \method{initiate_send()} method, which in turn
+ will call \method{refill_buffer()} to collect data from the producer
+ fifo associated with the channel.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{push}{data}
+ Creates a \class{simple_producer} object (\emph{see below}) containing the data and
+ pushes it on to the channel's \code{producer_fifo} to ensure its
+ transmission. This is all you need to do to have the channel write
+ the data out to the network, although it is possible to use your
+ own producers in more complex schemes to implement encryption and
+ chunking, for example.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{push_with_producer}{producer}
+ Takes a producer object and adds it to the producer fifo associated with
+ the channel. When all currently-pushed producers have been exhausted
+ the channel will consume this producer's data by calling its
+ \method{more()} method and send the data to the remote endpoint.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{readable}{}
+ Should return \code{True} for the channel to be included in the set of
+ channels tested by the \cfunction{select()} loop for readability.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{refill_buffer}{}
+ Refills the output buffer by calling the \method{more()} method of the
+ producer at the head of the fifo. If it is exhausted then the
+ producer is popped off the fifo and the next producer is activated.
+ If the current producer is, or becomes, \code{None} then the channel
+ is closed.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{set_terminator}{term}
+ Sets the terminating condition to be recognised on the channel. \code{term}
+ may be any of three types of value, corresponding to three different ways
+ to handle incoming protocol data.
+
+ \begin{tableii}{l|l}{}{term}{Description}
+ \lineii{\emph{string}}{Will call \method{found_terminator()} when the
+ string is found in the input stream}
+ \lineii{\emph{integer}}{Will call \method{found_terminator()} when the
+ indicated number of characters have been received}
+ \lineii{\code{None}}{The channel continues to collect data forever}
+ \end{tableii}
+
+ Note that any data following the terminator will be available for reading by
+ the channel after \method{found_terminator()} is called.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{writable}{}
+ Should return \code{True} as long as items remain on the producer fifo,
+ or the channel is connected and the channel's output buffer is non-empty.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\subsection{asynchat - Auxiliary Classes and Functions}
+
+\begin{classdesc}{simple_producer}{data\optional{, buffer_size=512}}
+ A \class{simple_producer} takes a chunk of data and an optional buffer size.
+ Repeated calls to its \method{more()} method yield successive chunks of the
+ data no larger than \var{buffer_size}.
+\end{classdesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{more}{}
+ Produces the next chunk of information from the producer, or returns the empty string.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{classdesc}{fifo}{\optional{list=None}}
+ Each channel maintains a \class{fifo} holding data which has been pushed by the
+ application but not yet popped for writing to the channel.
+ A \class{fifo} is a list used to hold data and/or producers until they are required.
+ If the \var{list} argument is provided then it should contain producers or
+ data items to be written to the channel.
+\end{classdesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{is_empty}{}
+ Returns \code{True} iff the fifo is empty.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{first}{}
+ Returns the least-recently \method{push()}ed item from the fifo.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{push}{data}
+ Adds the given data (which may be a string or a producer object) to the
+ producer fifo.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{pop}{}
+ If the fifo is not empty, returns \code{True, first()}, deleting the popped
+ item. Returns \code{False, None} for an empty fifo.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+The \module{asynchat} module also defines one utility function, which may be
+of use in network and textual analysis operations.
+
+\begin{funcdesc}{find_prefix_at_end}{haystack, needle}
+ Returns \code{True} if string \var{haystack} ends with any non-empty
+ prefix of string \var{needle}.
+\end{funcdesc}
+
+\subsection{asynchat Example \label{asynchat-example}}
+
+The following partial example shows how HTTP requests can be read with
+\class{async_chat}. A web server might create an \class{http_request_handler} object for
+each incoming client connection. Notice that initially the
+channel terminator is set to match the blank line at the end of the HTTP
+headers, and a flag indicates that the headers are being read.
+
+Once the headers have been read, if the request is of type POST
+(indicating that further data are present in the input stream) then the
+\code{Content-Length:} header is used to set a numeric terminator to
+read the right amount of data from the channel.
+
+The \method{handle_request()} method is called once all relevant input
+has been marshalled, after setting the channel terminator to \code{None}
+to ensure that any extraneous data sent by the web client are ignored.
+
+\begin{verbatim}
+class http_request_handler(asynchat.async_chat):
+
+ def __init__(self, conn, addr, sessions, log):
+ asynchat.async_chat.__init__(self, conn=conn)
+ self.addr = addr
+ self.sessions = sessions
+ self.ibuffer = []
+ self.obuffer = ""
+ self.set_terminator("\r\n\r\n")
+ self.reading_headers = True
+ self.handling = False
+ self.cgi_data = None
+ self.log = log
+
+ def collect_incoming_data(self, data):
+ """Buffer the data"""
+ self.ibuffer.append(data)
+
+ def found_terminator(self):
+ if self.reading_headers:
+ self.reading_headers = False
+ self.parse_headers("".join(self.ibuffer)
+ self.ibuffer = []
+ if self.op.upper() == "POST":
+ clen = self.headers.getheader("content-length")
+ self.set_terminator(int(clen))
+ else:
+ self.handling = True
+ self.set_terminator(None)
+ self.handle_request()
+ elif not self.handling:
+ self.set_terminator(None) # browsers sometimes over-send
+ self.cgi_data = parse(self.headers, "".join(self.ibuffer))
+ self.handling = True
+ self.ibuffer = []
+ self.handle_request()
+\end{verbatim}
+