Improve documentation of latency.

Also fix #1414.

docs/reference/features.rst

@@ -59,6 +59,8 @@ Both sides
  +------------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
  | Heartbeat | ✅ | ❌ | — | ✅ |
  +------------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ | Measure latency | ✅ | ❌ | — | ✅ |
+ +------------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
  | Perform the closing handshake | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
  +------------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
  | Enforce closing timeout | ✅ | ✅ | — | ✅ |

docs/topics/keepalive.rst

@@ -40,21 +40,24 @@ It loops through these steps:
 If the Pong frame isn't received, websockets considers the connection broken and
 closes it.
 
-This mechanism serves two purposes:
+This mechanism serves three purposes:
 
 1. It creates a trickle of traffic so that the TCP connection isn't idle and
  network infrastructure along the path keeps it open ("keepalive").
 2. It detects if the connection drops or becomes so slow that it's unusable in
  practice ("heartbeat"). In that case, it terminates the connection and your
  application gets a :exc:`~exceptions.ConnectionClosed` exception.
+3. It measures the :attr:`~asyncio.connection.Connection.latency` of the
+ connection. The time between sending a Ping frame and receiving a matching
+ Pong frame approximates the round-trip time.
 
 Timings are configurable with the ``ping_interval`` and ``ping_timeout``
 arguments of :func:`~asyncio.client.connect` and :func:`~asyncio.server.serve`.
 Shorter values will detect connection drops faster but they will increase
 network traffic and they will be more sensitive to latency.
 
 Setting ``ping_interval`` to :obj:`None` disables the whole keepalive and
-heartbeat mechanism.
+heartbeat mechanism, including measurement of latency.
 
 Setting ``ping_timeout`` to :obj:`None` disables only timeouts. This enables
 keepalive, to keep idle connections open, and disables heartbeat, to support large
@@ -85,9 +88,23 @@ Unfortunately, the WebSocket API in browsers doesn't expose the native Ping and
 Pong functionality in the WebSocket protocol. You have to roll your own in the
 application layer.
 
+Read this `blog post <https://making.close.com/posts/reliable-websockets/>`_ for
+a complete walk-through of this issue.
+
 Latency issues
 --------------
 
+The :attr:`~asyncio.connection.Connection.latency` attribute stores latency
+measured during the last exchange of Ping and Pong frames::
+
+ latency = websocket.latency
+
+Alternatively, you can measure the latency at any time by calling
+:attr:`~asyncio.connection.Connection.ping` and awaiting its result::
+
+ pong_waiter = await websocket.ping()
+ latency = await pong_waiter
+
 Latency between a client and a server may increase for two reasons:
 
 * Network connectivity is poor. When network packets are lost, TCP attempts to
@@ -97,7 +114,7 @@ Latency between a client and a server may increase for two reasons:
 
 * Traffic is high. For example, if a client sends messages on the connection
  faster than a server can process them, this manifests as latency as well,
- because data is waiting in flight, mostly in OS buffers.
+ because data is waiting in :doc:`buffers <memory>`.
 
  If the server is more than 20 seconds behind, it doesn't see the Pong before
  the default timeout elapses. As a consequence, it closes the connection.
@@ -109,8 +126,3 @@ Latency between a client and a server may increase for two reasons:
 
  The same reasoning applies to situations where the server sends more traffic
  than the client can accept.
-
-The latency measured during the last exchange of Ping and Pong frames is
-available in the :attr:`~asyncio.connection.Connection.latency` attribute.
-Alternatively, you can measure the latency at any time with the
-:attr:`~asyncio.connection.Connection.ping` method.

src/websockets/asyncio/connection.py

@@ -109,12 +109,13 @@ def __init__(
  """
  Latency of the connection, in seconds.
 
- This value is updated after sending a ping frame and receiving a
- matching pong frame. Before the first ping, :attr:`latency` is ``0``.
+ Latency is defined as the round-trip time of the connection. It is
+ measured by sending a Ping frame and waiting for a matching Pong frame.
+ Before the first measurement, :attr:`latency` is ``0``.
 
  By default, websockets enables a :ref:`keepalive <keepalive>` mechanism
- that sends ping frames automatically at regular intervals. You can also
- send ping frames and measure latency with :meth:`ping`.
+ that sends Ping frames automatically at regular intervals. You can also
+ send Ping frames and measure latency with :meth:`ping`.
  """
 
  # Task that sends keepalive pings. None when ping_interval is None.

src/websockets/legacy/protocol.py

@@ -289,12 +289,13 @@ def __init__(
  """
  Latency of the connection, in seconds.
 
- This value is updated after sending a ping frame and receiving a
- matching pong frame. Before the first ping, :attr:`latency` is ``0``.
+ Latency is defined as the round-trip time of the connection. It is
+ measured by sending a Ping frame and waiting for a matching Pong frame.
+ Before the first measurement, :attr:`latency` is ``0``.
 
  By default, websockets enables a :ref:`keepalive <keepalive>` mechanism
- that sends ping frames automatically at regular intervals. You can also
- send ping frames and measure latency with :meth:`ping`.
+ that sends Ping frames automatically at regular intervals. You can also
+ send Ping frames and measure latency with :meth:`ping`.
  """
 
  # Task running the data transfer.