使用Python的Twisted框架编写非阻塞程序的代码示例

先来看一段代码：

# ~*~ Twisted - A Python tale ~*~

from time import sleep

# Hello, I'm a developer and I mainly setup Wordpress.
def install_wordpress(customer):
  # Our hosting company Threads Ltd. is bad. I start installation and...
  print "Start installation for", customer
  # ...then wait till the installation finishes successfully. It is
  # boring and I'm spending most of my time waiting while consuming
  # resources (memory and some CPU cycles). It's because the process
  # is *blocking*.
  sleep(3)
  print "All done for", customer

# I do this all day long for our customers
def developer_day(customers):
  for customer in customers:
    install_wordpress(customer)

developer_day(["Bill", "Elon", "Steve", "Mark"])

运行一下，结果如下所示：

$ ./deferreds.py 1

------ Running example 1 ------
Start installation for Bill
All done for Bill
Start installation
...
* Elapsed time: 12.03 seconds

这是一段顺序执行的代码。四个消费者，为一个人安装需要3秒的时间，那么四个人就是12秒。这样处理不是很令人满意，所以看一下第二个使用了线程的例子：

import threading

# The company grew. We now have many customers and I can't handle the
# workload. We are now 5 developers doing exactly the same thing.
def developers_day(customers):
  # But we now have to synchronize... a.k.a. bureaucracy
  lock = threading.Lock()
  #
  def dev_day(id):
    print "Goodmorning from developer", id
    # Yuck - I hate locks...
    lock.acquire()
    while customers:
      customer = customers.pop(0)
      lock.release()
      # My Python is less readable
      install_wordpress(customer)
      lock.acquire()
    lock.release()
    print "Bye from developer", id
  # We go to work in the morning
  devs = [threading.Thread(target=dev_day, args=(i,)) for i in range(5)]
  [dev.start() for dev in devs]
  # We leave for the evening
  [dev.join() for dev in devs]

# We now get more done in the same time but our dev process got more
# complex. As we grew we spend more time managing queues than doing dev
# work. We even had occasional deadlocks when processes got extremely
# complex. The fact is that we are still mostly pressing buttons and
# waiting but now we also spend some time in meetings.
developers_day(["Customer %d" % i for i in xrange(15)])

运行一下：

$ ./deferreds.py 2

------ Running example 2 ------
Goodmorning from developer 0Goodmorning from developer
1Start installation forGoodmorning from developer 2
Goodmorning from developer 3Customer 0
...
from developerCustomer 13 3Bye from developer 2
* Elapsed time: 9.02 seconds

这次是一段并行执行的代码，使用了5个工作线程。15个消费者每个花费3s意味着总共45s的时间，不过用了5个线程并行执行总共只花费了9s的时间。这段代码有点复杂，很大一部分代码是用于管理并发，而不是专注于算法或者业务逻辑。另外，程序的输出结果看起来也很混杂，可读性也天津市。即使是简单的多线程的代码同样也难以写得很好，所以我们转为使用Twisted：

# For years we thought this was all there was... We kept hiring more
# developers, more managers and buying servers. We were trying harder
# optimising processes and fire-fighting while getting mediocre
# performance in return. Till luckily one day our hosting
# company decided to increase their fees and we decided to
# switch to Twisted Ltd.!

from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.internet import defer
from twisted.internet import task

# Twisted has a slightly different approach
def schedule_install(customer):
  # They are calling us back when a Wordpress installation completes.
  # They connected the caller recognition system with our CRM and
  # we know exactly what a call is about and what has to be done next.
  #
  # We now design processes of what has to happen on certain events.
  def schedule_install_wordpress():
      def on_done():
        print "Callback: Finished installation for", customer
    print "Scheduling: Installation for", customer
    return task.deferLater(reactor, 3, on_done)
  #
  def all_done(_):
    print "All done for", customer
  #
  # For each customer, we schedule these processes on the CRM
  # and that
  # is all our chief-Twisted developer has to do
  d = schedule_install_wordpress()
  d.addCallback(all_done)
  #
  return d

# Yes, we don't need many developers anymore or any synchronization.
# ~~ Super-powered Twisted developer ~~
def twisted_developer_day(customers):
  print "Goodmorning from Twisted developer"
  #
  # Here's what has to be done today
  work = [schedule_install(customer) for customer in customers]
  # Turn off the lights when done
  join = defer.DeferredList(work)
  join.addCallback(lambda _: reactor.stop())
  #
  print "Bye from Twisted developer!"
# Even his day is particularly short!
twisted_developer_day(["Customer %d" % i for i in xrange(15)])

# Reactor, our secretary uses the CRM and follows-up on events!
reactor.run()

运行结果：

------ Running example 3 ------
Goodmorning from Twisted developer
Scheduling: Installation for Customer 0
....
Scheduling: Installation for Customer 14
Bye from Twisted developer!
Callback: Finished installation for Customer 0
All done for Customer 0
Callback: Finished installation for Customer 1
All done for Customer 1
...
All done for Customer 14
* Elapsed time: 3.18 seconds

这次我们得到了完美的执行代码和可读性强的输出结果，并且没有使用线程。我们并行地处理了15个消费者，也就是说，本来需要45s的执行时间在3s之内就已经完成。这个窍门就是我们把所有的阻塞的对sleep()的调用都换成了Twisted中对等的task.deferLater()和回调函数。由于现在处理的操作在其他地方进行，我们就可以毫不费力地同时服务于15个消费者。
前面提到处理的操作发生在其他的某个地方。现在来解释一下，算术运算仍然发生在CPU内，但是现在的CPU处理速度相比磁盘和网络操作来说非常快。所以给CPU提供数据或者从CPU向内存或另一个CPU发送数据花费了大多数时间。我们使用了非阻塞的操作节省了这方面的时间，例如，task.deferLater()使用了回调函数，当数据已经传输完成的时候会被激活。
另一个很重要的一点是输出中的Goodmorning from Twisted developer和Bye from Twisted developer!信息。在代码开始执行时就已经打印出了这两条信息。如果代码如此早地执行到了这个地方，那么我们的应用真正开始运行是在什么时候呢？答案是，对于一个Twisted应用（包括Scrapy）来说是在reactor.run()里运行的。在调用这个方法之前，必须把应用中可能用到的每个Deferred链准备就绪，然后reactor.run()方法会监视并激活回调函数。
注意，reactor的主要一条规则就是，你可以执行任何操作，只要它足够快并且是非阻塞的。
现在好了，代码中没有那么用于管理多线程的部分了，不过这些回调函数看起来还是有些杂乱。可以修改成这样：

# Twisted gave us utilities that make our code way more readable!
@defer.inlineCallbacks
def inline_install(customer):
  print "Scheduling: Installation for", customer
  yield task.deferLater(reactor, 3, lambda: None)
  print "Callback: Finished installation for", customer
  print "All done for", customer

def twisted_developer_day(customers):
  ... same as previously but using inline_install() instead of schedule_install()

twisted_developer_day(["Customer %d" % i for i in xrange(15)])
reactor.run()

运行的结果和前一个例子相同。这段代码的作用和上一个例子是一样的，但是看起来更加简洁明了。inlineCallbacks生成器可以使用一些一些Python的机制来使得inl