How to write to a file using non blocking IO?
Solution 1
This is how you turn non-blocking mode on for a file in UNIX:
fd = os.open("filename", os.O_CREAT | os.O_WRONLY | os.O_NONBLOCK)
os.write(fd, "data")
os.close(fd)
On UNIX, however, turning on non-blocking mode has no visible effect for regular files! Even though the file is in non-blocking mode, the os.write
call won't return immediately, it will sleep until the write is complete. To prove it to yourself experimentally, try this:
import os
import datetime
data = "\n".join("testing\n" * 10 for x in xrange(10000000))
print("Size of data is %d bytes" % len(data))
print("open at %s" % str(datetime.datetime.now()))
fd = os.open("filename", os.O_CREAT | os.O_WRONLY | os.O_NONBLOCK)
print("write at %s" % str(datetime.datetime.now()))
os.write(fd, data)
print("close at %s" % str(datetime.datetime.now()))
os.close(fd)
print("end at %s" % str(datetime.datetime.now()))
You'll notice that the os.write
call does take several seconds. Even though the call is non-blocking (technically, it's not blocking, it's sleeping), the call is not asynchronous.
AFAIK, there is no way to write to a file asynchronously on Linux or on Windows. You can simulate it, however, using threads. Twisted has a method named deferToThread
for this purpose. Here's how you use it:
from twisted.internet import threads, reactor
data = "\n".join("testing\n" * 10 for x in xrange(10000000))
print("Size of data is %d bytes" % len(data))
def blocking_write():
print("Starting blocking_write")
f = open("testing", "w")
f.write(data)
f.close()
print("End of blocking_write")
def test_callback():
print("Running test_callback, just for kicks")
d = threads.deferToThread(blocking_code)
reactor.callWhenRunning(cc)
reactor.run()
Solution 2
Writes are cached by the OS and dumped to disk after a few seconds. That is, they are "not blocking" already. You don't have to do anything special.
Rahul
Updated on February 04, 2020Comments
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Rahul about 4 years
I want to write to a file using a non-blocking method in Python. On some googling, I found that the language supports
fcntl
in order to do so, but the method to implement the same is not very clear to me.This is the code snippet (I don't know where I am going wrong):
import os, fcntl nf = fcntl.fcntl(0,fcntl.F_UNCLK) fcntl.fcntl(0,fcntl.F_SETFL , nf | os.O_NONBLOCK ) nf = open ("test.txt", 'a') nf.write ( " sample text \n")
Is this the correct way to perform a non-blocking IO operation on a file? I doubt it. Also, could you suggest any other modules in Python which allow me to do so?
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jcollado about 12 yearspossible duplicate of Asynchronous file writing possible in python?
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Rahul about 12 yearsNo its not , i need to keep it simple by just using fcntl :)
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Flimm over 11 yearsWhat if the file is actually mounted on a network share? Surely, the call would only return after the acknowledgements have been received?
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jcea over 11 yearsDepends of the remote file system and semantic implemented, synchronous or asynchronous. There are examples of both, or even things like "sync on close".
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Sean over 11 yearsHow would I gain access to the reactor object from within a LineReciver or other such protocol built by a server factory?
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strcat almost 10 yearsA non-blocking write can be done to a regular file with POSIX AIO or Windows IOCP.