Add context examples

contexts
Tyler Goodlet 2019-01-21 11:38:09 -05:00
parent b6cc1e8c22
commit 276782eb45
1 changed files with 38 additions and 17 deletions

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@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ down. A great place to start is the `trio docs`_ and this `blog post`_.
.. _modern async Python: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0525/
.. contents:: Table of Contents
Philosophy
----------
``tractor``'s tenets non-comprehensively include:
@ -560,21 +563,20 @@ The ``name`` value you should pass to ``find_actor()`` is the one you passed as
*first* argument to either ``tractor.run()`` or ``ActorNursery.start_actor()``.
Streaming and using channels and contexts
-----------------------------------------
A ``Channel`` is the API which wraps an underlying *transport* and *interchange*
format to support *inter-actor-communication* (IAC). In its present state ``tractor``
uses TCP and msgpack_ but hopefully more alternatives in the future.
Streaming using channels and contexts
-------------------------------------
``Channel`` is the API which wraps an underlying *transport* and *interchange*
format to enable *inter-actor-communication*. In its present state ``tractor``
uses TCP and msgpack_.
If you aren't fond of having to write an async generator to stream data
between actors (or need something more flexible) you can instead use a
``Context``. A context wraps an actor-local spawned task and a ``Channel``
so that tasks executing across multiple processes can stream data
to one another using a low level, request oriented, API.
to one another using a low level, request oriented API.
As an example if you wanted to create a streaming server without writing
an async generator that *yields* values (which are implicitly
shipped over a channel to the caller) you instead define an async
an async generator that *yields* values you instead define an async
function:
.. code:: python
@ -593,16 +595,35 @@ function:
All that's required is declaring a ``ctx`` argument name somewhere in
your function signature and ``tractor`` will treat the async function
like async generator as a streaming function on the client task's side.
As you can imagine, this turns out to be handy particularly if you have
multiple tasks streaming responses concurrently.
like an async generator - as a streaming function from the client side.
This turns out to be handy particularly if you have
multiple tasks streaming responses concurrently:
The context idea comes from the `protocol context`_ in nanomsg_.
It allows you to perfom IPC in a task or protocol specific way.
.. code:: python
async def streamer(ctx, url, rate=2):
"""A simple web response streaming server.
"""
while True:
val = await web_request(url)
# this is the same as ``yield`` in the async gen case
await ctx.send_yield(val)
await trio.sleep(1 / rate)
Running actors standalone (without spawning)
--------------------------------------------
async def stream_multiple_sources(ctx, sources):
async with trio.open_nursery() as n:
for url in sources:
n.start_soon(streamer, ctx, url)
The context notion comes from the context_ in nanomsg_.
Running actors standalone
-------------------------
You don't have to spawn any actors using ``open_nursery()`` if you just
want to run a single actor that connects to an existing cluster.
All the comms and arbiter registration stuff still works. This can
@ -654,8 +675,8 @@ say hi, please feel free to ping me on the `trio gitter channel`_!
.. _supervisors: https://github.com/tgoodlet/tractor/issues/22
.. _nanomsg: https://github.com/tgoodlet/tractor/issues/19
.. _nng context: https://github.com/tgoodlet/tractor/issues/19
.. _nanomsg: https://nanomsg.github.io/nng/index.html
.. _context: https://nanomsg.github.io/nng/man/tip/nng_ctx.5
.. _gossip protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol
.. _trio gitter channel: https://gitter.im/python-trio/general
.. _celery: http://docs.celeryproject.org/en/latest/userguide/debugging.html