Curio is a library for performing concurrent I/O and common system programming tasks such as launching subprocesses and farming work out to thread and process pools. It uses Python coroutines and the explicit async/await syntax introduced in Python 3.5. Its programming model is based on cooperative multitasking and existing programming abstractions such as threads, sockets, files, subprocesses, locks, and queues. You'll find it to be small, fast, and fun.
Curio is experimental software that currently only works on POSIX systems (OS X, Linux, etc.). Although it is a work in progress, it is extensively documented and has a fairly comprehensive test suite. Just be aware that the programming API is fluid and could change at any time. Although curio can be installed via pip, the version uploaded on PyPI is only updated occasionally. You'll probably get better results using the version cloned from github. You'll also want to make sure you're using Python 3.6. Of course, your mileage might vary.
The version 0.6 "release" of curio has a lot of improvements and cleaned up APIs. However, it's mainly just a snapshot that represents the state of Curio before it starts utilizing more features of Python 3.6. For the best results, you should use Python 3.6 and Curio from github.
The verion 0.7 version (in progress) still works on Python 3.5. Eventually, Curio will start using Python-3.6 specific features though.
pip install git+https://github.com/dabeaz/curio.git
Here is a simple TCP echo server implemented using sockets and curio:
# echoserv.py
from curio import run, spawn
from curio.socket import *
async def echo_server(address):
sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
sock.setsockopt(SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
sock.bind(address)
sock.listen(5)
print('Server listening at', address)
async with sock:
while True:
client, addr = await sock.accept()
await spawn(echo_client, client, addr)
async def echo_client(client, addr):
print('Connection from', addr)
async with client:
while True:
data = await client.recv(100000)
if not data:
break
await client.sendall(data)
print('Connection closed')
if __name__ == '__main__':
run(echo_server, ('',25000))If you have programmed with threads, you find that curio looks similar. You'll also find that the above server can handle thousands of simultaneous client connections even though no threads are being used under the covers.
Of course, if you prefer something a little higher level, you can have curio take care of the fiddly bits related to setting up the server portion of the code:
# echoserv.py
from curio import run, tcp_server
async def echo_client(client, addr):
print('Connection from', addr)
while True:
data = await client.recv(100000)
if not data:
break
await client.sendall(data)
print('Connection closed')
if __name__ == '__main__':
run(tcp_server, '', 25000, echo_client)This is only a small sample of what's possible. Read the official documentation for more in-depth coverage. The tutorial is a good starting point. The howto describes how to carry out various tasks.
Curio provides additional support for SSL connections, synchronization primitives (events, locks, recursive locks, semaphores, and condition variables), queues, Unix signals, subprocesses, as well as running tasks in threads and processes. The task model fully supports cancellation, timeouts, monitoring, and other features critical to writing reliable code.
- Fear and Awaiting in Async, Keynote talk by David Beazley at PyOhio 2016.
- Topics of Interest (Async), Keynote talk by David Beazley at Python Brasil 2015.
- Trio A different I/O library that's been inspired by Curio and shares many of its overarching ideas.
- Some thoughts on asynchronous API design in a post-async/await world, by Nathaniel Smith.
- A Tale of Event Loops, by André Caron.
Python already has a variety of libraries for async and event driven I/O. So, why create yet another library? There is no simple answer to that question, but here are a few of the motivations for creating curio.
- Python 3 has evolved considerably as a programming language and has adopted many new language features that are well-suited to cleanly writing a library like this. For example, improved support for non-blocking I/O, support for delegation to subgenerators (yield from) and the introduction of explicit async and await syntax in Python 3.5. Curio takes full advantage of these features and is not encumbered by issues of backwards compatibility with legacy Python code written 15 years ago.
- Existing I/O libraries are mainly built on event-loops, callback functions, futures, and various abstractions that predate Python's proper support for coroutines. As a result, they are either overly complicated or dependent on esoteric magic involving C extensions, monkeypatching, or reimplementing half of the TCP flow-control protocol. Curio is a ground-up implementation that takes a different approach to the problem while relying upon known programming techniques involving sockets and files. If you have previously written synchronous code using processes or threads, curio will feel familiar. That is by design.
- Simplicity is an important part of writing reliable systems software. When your code fails, it helps to be able to debug it--possibly down to the level of individual calls to the operating system if necessary. Simplicity matters a lot. Simple code also tends to run faster. The implementation of Curio aims to be simple. The API for using Curio aims to be intuitive.
- It's fun.
Q: Is curio implemented using the asyncio module?
A: No. Curio is a standalone library. Although the core of the library
uses the same basic machinery as asyncio to poll for I/O events,
the handling of those events is carried out in a completely different
manner.
Q: Is curio meant to be a clone of asyncio?
A: No. Although curio provides a significant amount of overlapping functionality, the API is different and smaller. Compatibility with other libaries is not a goal.
Q: How many tasks can be created?
A: Each task involves an instance of a Task class that
encapsulates a generator. No threads are used. As such, you're really
only limited by the memory of your machine--potentially you could have
hundreds of thousands of tasks. The I/O functionality in curio is
implemented using the built-in selectors module. Thus, the number
of open sockets allowed would be subject to the limits of that library
combined with any per-user limits imposed by the operating system.
Q: Can curio interoperate with other event loops?
A: It depends on what you mean by the word "interoperate." Curio's
preferred mechanism of communication with the external world is a
queue. It is possible to communicate between Curio, threads, and
other event loops using queues. Curio can also submit work to
the asyncio event loop with the provision that it must be running
separately in a different thread.
Q: How fast is curio?
A: In rough benchmarking of the simple echo server shown here, Curio
runs about 20% faster than comparable code using coroutines in
asyncio on Python 3.6. This is on OS-X so your mileage might
vary. Curio is not as fast as servers that utilize threads, low-level
callback-based event handling (e.g., low-level protocols in
asyncio), or direct coding in assembly language. However, those
approaches also don't involve coroutines (which is the whole point of
Curio). See the examples/benchmark directory of the distribution
for various testing programs.
Q: Is curio going to evolve into a framework?
A: Unclear. The current goal is merely to provide a small, simple library for performing concurrent I/O, task synchronization, and common systems operations involving interprocess communication and subprocesses. It is not anticipated that curio itself would evolve into a giant framework for implementing application level protocols such as HTTP. However, it might serve as a foundation for other packages that want to provide that kind of functionality.
Q: What are future plans?
A: Future work on curio will primarily focus on features related to performance, debugging, diagnostics, and reliability. A main goal is to provide a robust environment for running and controlling concurrent tasks. However, it's also supposed to be fun. A lot of time is being spent thinking about the API and how to make it pleasant.
Q: Is there a Curio sticker?
A: No.
Q: How big is curio?
A: The complete library currently consists of about 3200 statements as reported in coverage tests.
Q: I see these warnings about not using Curio. What should I do?
A: Has programming taught you nothing? Warnings are meant to be ignored. Of course you should use Curio.
Q: Can I contribute?
A: Absolutely. Please use the Github page at https://github.com/dabeaz/curio as the primary point of discussion concerning pull requests, bugs, and feature requests.
Read the official docs here: https://curio.readthedocs.io
A discussion forum for Curio is available at http://forum.dabeaz.com/c/curio. Please go there to ask questions and find out whats happening with the project.
- David Beazley
- Brett Cannon
- Nathaniel Smith
- Alexander Zhukov
- Laura Dickinson
Curio was created by David Beazley (@dabeaz). http://www.dabeaz.com
It is a young project. All contributions welcome.