asyncio is a Python 3’s built-in library. This means it’s already installed if
you have Python 3. Since Python 3.5, it is convenient to work with asynchronous
code. Before (Python 3.4) we didn’t have
await, but now we do.
asyncio stands for Asynchronous Input Output. This is a very powerful
concept to use whenever you work IO. Interacting with the web or external
APIs such as Telegram’s makes a lot of sense this way.
Asynchronous IO makes a lot of sense in a library like Telethon.
You send a request to the server (such as “get some message”), and
asyncio, your code won’t block while a response arrives.
The alternative would be to spawn a thread for each update so that other code can run while the response arrives. That is a lot more expensive.
The code will also run faster, because instead of switching back and forth between the OS and your script, your script can handle it all. Avoiding switching saves quite a bit of time, in Python or any other language that supports asynchronous IO. It will also be cheaper, because tasks are smaller than threads, which are smaller than processes.
# First we need the asyncio library import asyncio # Then we need a loop to work with loop = asyncio.get_event_loop() # We also need something to run async def main(): for char in 'Hello, world!\n': print(char, end='', flush=True) await asyncio.sleep(0.2) # Then, we need to run the loop with a task loop.run_until_complete(main())
The moment you import any of these:
from telethon import sync, ... # or from telethon.sync import ... # or import telethon.sync
sync module rewrites most
methods in Telethon to something similar to this:
def new_method(): result = original_method() if loop.is_running(): # the loop is already running, return the await-able to the user return result else: # the loop is not running yet, so we can run it for the user return loop.run_until_complete(result)
That means you can do this:
Instead of this:
me = client.loop.run_until_complete(client.get_me()) print(me.username) # or, using asyncio's default loop (it's the same) import asyncio loop = asyncio.get_event_loop() # == client.loop me = loop.run_until_complete(client.get_me()) print(me.username)
As you can see, it’s a lot of boilerplate and noise having to type
run_until_complete all the time, so you can let the magic module
to rewrite it for you. But notice the comment above: it won’t run
the loop if it’s already running, because it can’t. That means this:
async def main(): # 3. the loop is running here print( client.get_me() # 4. this will return a coroutine! .username # 5. this fails, coroutines don't have usernames ) loop.run_until_complete( # 2. run the loop and the ``main()`` coroutine main() # 1. calling ``async def`` "returns" a coroutine )
Will fail. So if you’re inside an
async def, then the loop is
running, and if the loop is running, you must
await things yourself:
async def main(): print((await client.get_me()).username) loop.run_until_complete(main())
async keyword lets you define asynchronous functions,
also known as coroutines, and also iterate over asynchronous
loops or use
import asyncio async def main(): # ^ this declares the main() coroutine function async with client: # ^ this is an asynchronous with block async for message in client.iter_messages(chat): # ^ this is a for loop over an asynchronous generator print(message.sender.username) loop = asyncio.get_event_loop() # ^ this assigns the default event loop from the main thread to a variable loop.run_until_complete(main()) # ^ this runs the *entire* loop until the main() function finishes. # While the main() function does not finish, the loop will be running. # While the loop is running, you can't run it again.
await keyword blocks the current task, and the loop can run
other tasks. Tasks can be thought of as “threads”, since many can run
import asyncio async def hello(delay): await asyncio.sleep(delay) # await tells the loop this task is "busy" print('hello') # eventually the loop resumes the code here async def world(delay): # the loop decides this method should run first await asyncio.sleep(delay) # await tells the loop this task is "busy" print('world') # eventually the loop finishes all tasks loop = asyncio.get_event_loop() # get the default loop for the main thread loop.create_task(world(2)) # create the world task, passing 2 as delay loop.create_task(hello(delay=1)) # another task, but with delay 1 try: # run the event loop forever; ctrl+c to stop it # we could also run the loop for three seconds: # loop.run_until_complete(asyncio.sleep(3)) loop.run_forever() except KeyboardInterrupt: pass
The same example, but without the comment noise:
import asyncio async def hello(delay): await asyncio.sleep(delay) print('hello') async def world(delay): await asyncio.sleep(delay) print('world') loop = asyncio.get_event_loop() loop.create_task(world(2)) loop.create_task(hello(1)) loop.run_until_complete(asyncio.sleep(3))
Yes, you can, but you must understand that the loops themselves are not thread safe. and you must be sure to know what is happening. You may want to create a loop in a new thread and make sure to pass it to the client:
import asyncio import threading def go(): loop = asyncio.new_event_loop() client = TelegramClient(..., loop=loop) ... threading.Thread(target=go).start()
Generally, you don’t need threads unless you know what you’re doing.
Just create another task, as shown above. If you’re using the Telethon
with a library that uses threads, you must be careful to use
whenever you use the client, or enable the compatible mode. For that, see
Compatibility and Convenience.
You may have seen this error:
RuntimeError: There is no current event loop in thread 'Thread-1'.
It just means you didn’t create a loop for that thread, and if you don’t
pass a loop when creating the client, it uses
which only works in the main thread.
All of what
client.run_until_disconnected() does is
asyncio’s event loop until the client is disconnected. That means
the loop is running. And if the loop is running, it will run all the tasks
in it. So if you want to run other code, create tasks for it:
from datetime import datetime async def clock(): while True: print('The time:', datetime.now()) await asyncio.sleep(1) loop.create_task(clock()) ... client.run_until_disconnected()
This creates a task for a clock that prints the time every second.
You don’t need to use
You just need to make the loop is running, somehow.
loop.run_until_complete() can also be used to run
the loop, and Telethon will be happy with any approach.
Of course, there are better tools to run code hourly or daily, see below.
Asynchronous IO is a really powerful tool, as we’ve seen. There are plenty
of other useful libraries that also use
asyncio and that you can integrate
- aiohttp is like the infamous requests but asynchronous.
- quart is an asynchronous alternative to Flask.
- aiocron lets you schedule things to run things at a desired time, or run some tasks hourly, daily, etc.
And of course, asyncio itself! It has a lot of methods that let you do nice things. For example, you can run requests in parallel:
async def main(): last, sent, download_path = await asyncio.gather( client.get_messages('TelethonChat', 10), client.send_message('TelethonOfftopic', 'Hey guys!'), client.download_profile_photo('TelethonChat') ) loop.run_until_complete(main())
This code will get the 10 last messages from @TelethonChat, send one to @TelethonOfftopic, and also download the profile
photo of the main group.
asyncio will run all these three tasks
at the same time. You can run all the tasks you want this way.
A different way would be:
loop.create_task(client.get_messages('TelethonChat', 10)) loop.create_task(client.send_message('TelethonOfftopic', 'Hey guys!')) loop.create_task(client.download_profile_photo('TelethonChat'))
They will run in the background as long as the loop is running too.
You can also start an asyncio server in the main script, and from another script, connect to it to achieve Inter-Process Communication. You can get as creative as you want. You can program anything you want. When you use a library, you’re not limited to use only its methods. You can combine all the libraries you want. People seem to forget this simple fact!
Because it’s so common that it’s really convenient to offer said functionality by default. This means you can set up all your event handlers and start the client without worrying about loops at all.