diff --git a/Doc/library/asyncio-dev.rst b/Doc/library/asyncio-dev.rst index 7083e60061c..72a06f538e8 100644 --- a/Doc/library/asyncio-dev.rst +++ b/Doc/library/asyncio-dev.rst @@ -40,6 +40,43 @@ Examples of effects of the debug mode: `. +Cancellation +------------ + +Cancellation of tasks is not common in classic programming. In asynchronous +programming, not only it is something common, but you have to prepare your +code to handle it. + +Futures and tasks can be cancelled explicitly with their :meth:`Future.cancel` +method. The :func:`wait_for` function cancels the waited task when the timeout +occurs. There are many other cases where a task can be cancelled indirectly. + +Don't call :meth:`~Future.set_result` or :meth:`~Future.set_exception` method +of :class:`Future` if the future is cancelled: it would fail with an exception. +For example, write:: + + if not fut.cancelled(): + fut.set_result('done') + +Don't schedule directly a call to the :meth:`~Future.set_result` or the +:meth:`~Future.set_exception` method of a future with +:meth:`BaseEventLoop.call_soon`: the future can be cancelled before its method +is called. + +If you wait for a future, you should check early if the future was cancelled to +avoid useless operations. Example:: + + @coroutine + def slow_operation(fut): + if fut.cancelled(): + return + # ... slow computation ... + yield from fut + # ... + +The :func:`shield` function can also be used to ignore cancellation. + + .. _asyncio-multithreading: Concurrency and multithreading