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author | Steve Holden <steve@holdenweb.com> | 2002-07-03 18:36:39 (GMT) |
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committer | Steve Holden <steve@holdenweb.com> | 2002-07-03 18:36:39 (GMT) |
commit | b1af86a1d7ada842ede1d5ea02a9a04f3939b8ca (patch) | |
tree | cbc4c839a75285da08a7fdb71e646b108812dd50 /Doc/lib/libasynchat.tex | |
parent | df872a20525dbc69e398a1a30ce416327eed8b0b (diff) | |
download | cpython-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.tex | 254 |
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} + |