aioconsole

Asynchronous console and interfaces for asyncio

aioconsole provides:

• asynchronous equivalents to input, print, exec and code.interact
• an interactive loop running the asynchronous python console
• a way to customize and run command line interface using argparse
• stream support to serve interfaces instead of using standard streams
• the apython script to access asyncio code at runtime without modifying the sources

⚠️ Limitations

Better alternative to aioconsole.ainput()

A common use case for aioconsole is the async alternative to the builtin input function. However, aioconsole was written in 2015 and since then the powerful prompt-toolkit library has gained better asyncio support. The recommended way to prompt in an asyncio application is now to use the prompt-toolkit library:

from prompt_toolkit import PromptSession
from prompt_toolkit.patch_stdout import patch_stdout

async def my_coroutine():
   session = PromptSession()
   while True:
      with patch_stdout():
            result = await session.prompt_async("Say something: ")
      print(f"You said: {result}")

Better python consoles with async support

The python console exposed by aioconsole is quite limited compared to modern consoles such as IPython or ptpython. Luckily, those projects gained greater asyncio support over the years. In particular, the following use cases overlap with aioconsole capabilities:

• Embedding a ptpython console in an asyncio program
• Using the await syntax in an IPython console

Requirements

• Python >= 3.8

Installation

aioconsole is available on PyPI and GitHub. Both of the following commands install the aioconsole package and the apython script.

$ pip3 install aioconsole   # from PyPI
$ python3 setup.py install  # or from the sources
$ apython -h
usage: apython [-h] [--serve [HOST:] PORT] [--no-readline]
               [--banner BANNER] [--locals LOCALS]
               [-m MODULE | FILE] ...

Run the given python file or module with a modified asyncio policy replacing
the default event loop with an interactive loop. If no argument is given, it
simply runs an asynchronous python console.

positional arguments:
  FILE                  python file to run
  ARGS                  extra arguments

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --serve [HOST:] PORT, -s [HOST:] PORT
                        serve a console on the given interface instead
  --no-readline         force readline disabling
  --banner BANNER       provide a custom banner
  --locals LOCALS       provide custom locals as a dictionary
  -m MODULE             run a python module

Simple usage

The following example demonstrates the use of await inside the console:

$ apython
Python 3.5.0 (default, Sep 7 2015, 14:12:03)
[GCC 4.8.4] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
---
This console is running in an asyncio event loop.
It allows you to wait for coroutines using the 'await' syntax.
Try: await asyncio.sleep(1, result=3, loop=loop)
---

>>> await asyncio.sleep(1, result=3)
# Wait one second...
3
>>>

Documentation

Find more examples in the documentation and the example directory.

Contact

Vincent Michel: vxgmichel@gmail.com