Need a thread-safe asynchronous message queue - python

I'm looking for a Python class (preferably part of the standard language, rather than a 3rd party library) to manage asynchronous 'broadcast style' messaging.
I will have one thread which puts messages on the queue (the 'putMessageOnQueue' method must not block) and then multiple other threads which will all be waiting for messages, having presumably called some blocking 'waitForMessage' function. When a message is placed on the queue I want each of the waiting threads to get its own copy of the message.
I've looked at the built-in Queue class, but I don't think this is suitable because consuming messages seems to involve removing them from the queue, so only 1 client thread would see each one.
This seems like it should be a common use-case, can anyone recommend a solution?

I think the typical approach to this is to use a separate message queue for each thread, and push the message onto every queue which has previously registered an interest in receiving such messages.
Something like this ought to work, but it's untested code...
from time import sleep
from threading import Thread
from Queue import Queue
class DispatcherThread(Thread):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(DispatcherThread, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.interested_threads = []
def run(self):
while 1:
if some_condition:
self.dispatch_message(some_message)
else:
sleep(0.1)
def register_interest(self, thread):
self.interested_threads.append(thread)
def dispatch_message(self, message):
for thread in self.interested_threads:
thread.put_message(message)
class WorkerThread(Thread):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(WorkerThread, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.queue = Queue()
def run(self):
# Tell the dispatcher thread we want messages
dispatcher_thread.register_interest(self)
while 1:
# Wait for next message
message = self.queue.get()
# Process message
# ...
def put_message(self, message):
self.queue.put(message)
dispatcher_thread = DispatcherThread()
dispatcher_thread.start()
worker_threads = []
for i in range(10):
worker_thread = WorkerThread()
worker_thread.start()
worker_threads.append(worker_thread)
dispatcher_thread.join()

I think this is a more straight forward example (taken from the Queue example in Python Lib )
from threading import Thread
from Queue import Queue
num_worker_threads = 2
def worker():
while True:
item = q.get()
do_work(item)
q.task_done()
q = Queue()
for i in range(num_worker_threads):
t = Thread(target=worker)
t.daemon = True
t.start()
for item in source():
q.put(item)
q.join() # block until all tasks are done

Related

Can I run cleanup code in daemon threads in python?

Suppose I have some consumer daemon threads that constantly take objects from a queue whenever the main thread puts them there and performs some long operation (a couple of seconds) with them.
The problem is that whenever the main thread is done, the daemon threads are killed before they finish processing whatever is left in the queue.
I know that one way to solve this could be to wait for the daemon threads to finish processing whatever is left in the queue and then exit, but I am curious if there is any way for the daemon threads to "clean up" after themselves (i.e. finish processing whatever is left in the queue) when the main thread exits, without explicitly having the main thread tell the daemon threads to start cleaning up.
The motivation behind this is that I made a python package that has a logging handler class that puts items into a queue whenever the user tries to log something (e.g. with logging.info("message")), and the handler has a daemon thread that sends the logs over the network. I'd prefer if the daemon thread could clean up by itself, so users of the package wouldn't have to manually make sure to make their main thread wait for the log handler to finish its processing.
Minimal working example
# this code is in my package
class MyHandler(logging.Handler):
def __init__(self, level):
super().__init__(level=level)
self.queue = Queue()
self.thread = Thread(target=self.consume, daemon=True)
self.thread.start()
def emit(self, record):
# This gets called whenever the user does logging.info, or similar
self.queue.put(record)
def consume(self):
while True:
record = self.queue.get()
send(record) # send record over network, can take a few seconds (assume it never raises)
self.queue.task_done()
# This is user's main code
# user will have to keep a reference to the handler for later. I want to avoid this.
my_handler = MyHandler()
# set up logging
logging.basicConfig(..., handlers=[..., my_handler])
# do some stuff...
logging.info("this will be sent over network")
# some more stuff...
logging.error("also sent over network")
# even more stuff
# before exiting must wait for handler to finish sending
# I don't want user to have to do this
my_hanler.queue.join()
You can use threading.main_thread.join() which will wait until shutdown like so:
import threading
import logging
import queue
class MyHandler(logging.Handler):
def __init__(self, level):
super().__init__(level=level)
self.queue = queue.Queue()
self.thread = threading.Thread(target=self.consume) # Not daemon
# Shutdown thread
threading.Thread(
target=lambda: threading.main_thread().join() or self.queue.put(None)
).start()
self.thread.start()
def emit(self, record):
# This gets called whenever the user does logging.info, or similar
self.queue.put(record)
def consume(self):
while True:
record = self.queue.get()
if record is None:
print("cleaning")
return # Cleanup
print(record) # send record over network, can take a few seconds (assume it never raises)
self.queue.task_done()
Quick test code:
logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)
logging.getLogger().addHandler(MyHandler(logging.INFO))
logging.info("Hello")
exit()
You can use atexit to wait until the daemon thread shuts down:
import queue, threading, time, logging, atexit
class MyHandler(logging.Handler):
def __init__(self, level):
super().__init__(level=level)
self.queue = queue.Queue()
self.thread = threading.Thread(target=self.consume, daemon=True)
# Right before main thread exits, signal cleanup and wait until done
atexit.register(lambda: self.queue.put(None) or self.thread.join())
self.thread.start()
def emit(self, record):
# This gets called whenever the user does logging.info, or similar
self.queue.put(record)
def consume(self):
while True:
record = self.queue.get()
if record is None: # Cleanup requested
print("cleaning")
time.sleep(5)
return
print(record) # send record over network, can take a few seconds (assume it never raises)
self.queue.task_done()
# Test code
logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)
logging.getLogger().addHandler(MyHandler(logging.INFO))
logging.info("Hello")

JoinableQueue between two process, Two processes are blocking forever sometimes

I am writing multiprocess program. There are four class: Main, Worker, Request and Ack. The Main class is the entry point of program. It will create the sub-process called Worker to do some jobs. The main process put the Request into JoinableQueue, and than Worker get request from queue. When Worker finished the request, it will put the ACK into queue. The part of code shown as below:
Main:
class Main():
def __init__(self):
self.cmd_queue = JoinableQueue()
self.worker = Worker(self.cmd_queue)
def call_worker(self, cmd_code):
if self.cmd_queue.empty() is True:
request = Request(cmd_code)
self.cmd_queue.put(request)
self.cmd_queue.join()
ack = self.cmd_queue.get()
self.cmd_queue.task_done()
if ack.value == 0:
return True
else:
return False
else:
# TODO: Error Handling.
pass
def run_worker(self):
self.worker.start()
Worker:
class Worker(Process):
def __init__(self, cmd_queue):
super(Worker, self).__init__()
self.cmd_queue = cmd_queue
...
def run(self):
while True:
ack = Ack(0)
try:
request = self.cmd_queue.get()
if request.cmd_code == ReqCmd.enable_handler:
self.enable_handler()
elif request.cmd_code == ReqCmd.disable_handler:
self.disable_handler()
else:
pass
except Exception:
ack.value = -1
finally:
self.cmd_queue.task_done()
self.cmd_queue.put(ack)
self.cmd_queue.join()
It often works normally. But Main process stuck at self.cmd_queue.join(), and the Worker stuck at self.cmd_queue.join() sometimes. It is so weird! Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks
There's nothing weird in the above issue: you shouldn't call queue's join within a typical single worker process activity because
Queue.join()
Blocks until all items in the queue have been gotten and
processed.
Such a calls where they are in your current implementation will make the processing pipeline wait.
Usually queue.join() is called in the main (supervisor) thread after initiating/starting all threads/workers.
https://docs.python.org/3/library/queue.html#queue.Queue.join

How to implement a python thread pool to test for network connectivity?

I am trying to implement a Python (2.6.x/2.7.x) thread pool that would check for network connectivity(ping or whatever), the entire pool threads must be killed/terminated when the check is successful.
So I am thinking of creating a pool of, let's say, 10 worker threads. If any one of them is successful in pinging, the main thread should terminate all the rest.
How do I implement this?
This is not a compilable code, this is just to give you and idea how to make threads communicate..
Inter process or threads communication happens through queues or pipes and some other ways..here I'm using queues for communication.
It works like this.. I'll send ip addresses in in_queue and add response to out_queue, my main thread monitors out_queue and if it gets desired result, it marks all the threads to terminate.
Below is the pinger thread definition..
import threading
from Queue import Queue, Empty
# A thread that pings ip.
class Pinger(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, kwargs=None):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.kwargs = kwargs
self.stop_pinging = False
def run(self):
ip_queue = self.kwargs.get('in_queue')
out_queue = self.kwargs.get('out_queue')
while not self.stop_pinging:
try:
data = ip_quque.get(timeout=1)
ping_status = ping(data)
# This is pseudo code, you've to takecare of
# your own ping.
if ping_status:
out_queue.put('success')
# you can even break here if you don't want to
# continue after one success
else:
out_queue.put('failure')
if ip_queue.empty()
break
except Empty, e:
pass
Here is the main thread block..
# Create the shared queue and launch both thread pools
in_queue = Queue()
out_queue = Queue()
ip_list = ['ip1', 'ip2', '....']
# This is to add all the ips to the queue or you can
# customize to add through some producer way.
for ip in ip_list:
in_queue.put(ip)
pingerer_pool = []
for i in xrange(1, 10):
pingerer_worker = Pinger(kwargs={'in_queue': in_queue, 'out_queue': out_queue}, name=str(i))
pingerer_pool.append(pinger_worker)
pingerer_worker.start()
while 1:
if out_queue.get() == 'success':
for pinger in pinger_pool:
pinger_worker.stop_pinging = True
break
Note: This is a pseudo code, you should make this workable as you like.

Different behavior in run and start in Python multiprocessing

I am trying to start multiple processes in a Python program, using multiprocessing.Queue to share data between them.
My code is shown as follows, TestClass is the process that receives packets from a zmq socket, and feeds them into the queue. There is another process(I took it out from the code) keeps fetching messages from the queue. I also have a script running to publish messages to this zmq channel.
from multiprocessing import Process, Queue
import zmq
import time
class TestClass(Process):
def __init__(self, queue):
super(TestClass, self).__init__()
# Setting up connections
self.context = zmq.Context()
self.socket = self.context.socket(zmq.SUB)
self.socket.connect("tcp://192.168.0.6:8577")
self.socket.setsockopt(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, b'')
self.queue = queue
def run(self):
while True:
msg = self.socket.recv()
self.queue.put(msg)
queue = Queue()
c = TestClass(queue)
c.run()
# Do something else
If I use c.run() to start the process, it runs fine, but it is not started as a Process because it blocks the following statement.
Then I switched to c.start() to start the process, but it was stuck at the line socket.recv() and cannot get any incoming messages. Can anybody please explain this and suggest a good solution? Thanks
The issue is that you're creating the zmq socket in the parent process, but then trying to use it in the child. Something in the forking process is breaking the socket, so it's not working when you try using it. You can fix it by simply creating the socket in the child, rather than the parent. This has no negative side effects, since you're not trying to use the socket in the parent to begin with.
from multiprocessing import Process, Queue
import zmq
import time
class TestClass(Process):
def __init__(self, queue):
super(TestClass, self).__init__()
self.queue = queue
def run(self):
# Setting up connections
self.context = zmq.Context()
self.socket = self.context.socket(zmq.SUB)
self.socket.connect("tcp://192.168.0.6:8577")
self.socket.setsockopt(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, b'')
while True:
msg = self.socket.recv()
self.queue.put(msg)
if __name__ == "__main__":
queue = Queue()
c = TestClass(queue)
c.start() # Don't use run()
# Do something else

Python: return result from a thread

I'm trying to multithread my Python application. This is how i thought the application would work:
A list of ipv4 addresses is created by the user
For each ipv4 address, the application establishes an SSH connection and logs in. This part would benefit from multithreading since each device takes about 10 seconds to complete. The ssh bit is all handled by my ConfDumper class.
in each thread, a bit of data is fetched from the network device and should be returned to the main thread (where there is a list of devices)
Once all threads are done, a result is presented.
Being new to Python and having no experience with multithreading, I've tried something like this:
import threading
import confDumper
class MyThread (threading.Thread):
device = None
# A device object is sent as agument
def __init__(self, device):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.device = device
def run(self):
print "Starting scan..."
self.sshscan()
print "Exiting thread"
def sshscan(self):
s = confDumper.ConfDumper(self.device.mgmt_ip, self.device.username, self.device.password, self.device.enable_password)
t = s.getConf()
if t:
# We got the conf, return it to the main thread, somehow...
It seems to be working when I debug the code and step though the lines one by one, but once the thread is closed all results from the thread are lost. How do I return the result to the main thread?
You can use a Queue:
import Queue
import threading
import random
import time
class Worker(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, queue):
super(Worker, self).__init__()
self._queue = queue
def run(self):
time.sleep(5.0 * random.random())
self._queue.put(str(self))
queue = Queue.Queue()
workers = [Worker(queue) for _ in xrange(10)]
for worker in workers:
worker.start()
for worker in workers:
worker.join()
while queue.qsize():
print queue.get()
This was much easier than I thought. As far as I can see you don't have to return anything, the object sent to the thread is the same as the source.

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