Async / Await

If you are working with a Python library that makes use of async functions or wish to provide Python bindings for an async Rust library, pyo3-asyncio likely has the tools you need. It provides conversions between async functions in both Python and Rust and was designed with first-class support for popular Rust runtimes such as tokio and async-std. In addition, all async Python code runs on the default asyncio event loop, so pyo3-asyncio should work just fine with existing Python libraries.

In the following sections, we'll give a general overview of pyo3-asyncio explaining how to call async Python functions with PyO3, how to call async Rust functions from Python, and how to configure your codebase to manage the runtimes of both.

Quickstart

Here are some examples to get you started right away! A more detailed breakdown of the concepts in these examples can be found in the following sections.

Rust Applications

Here we initialize the runtime, import Python's asyncio library and run the given future to completion using Python's default EventLoop and async-std. Inside the future, we convert asyncio sleep into a Rust future and await it.

# Cargo.toml dependencies
[dependencies]
pyo3 = { version = "0.14" }
pyo3-asyncio = { version = "0.14", features = ["attributes", "async-std-runtime"] }
async-std = "1.9"

//! main.rs

use pyo3::prelude::*;

#[pyo3_asyncio::async_std::main]
async fn main() -> PyResult<()> {
    let fut = Python::with_gil(|py| {
        let asyncio = py.import("asyncio")?;
        // convert asyncio.sleep into a Rust Future
        pyo3_asyncio::async_std::into_future(asyncio.call_method1("sleep", (1.into_py(py),))?)
    })?;

    fut.await?;

    Ok(())
}

The same application can be written to use tokio instead using the #[pyo3_asyncio::tokio::main] attribute.

# Cargo.toml dependencies
[dependencies]
pyo3 = { version = "0.14" }
pyo3-asyncio = { version = "0.14", features = ["attributes", "tokio-runtime"] }
tokio = "1.4"

//! main.rs

use pyo3::prelude::*;

#[pyo3_asyncio::tokio::main]
async fn main() -> PyResult<()> {
    let fut = Python::with_gil(|py| {
        let asyncio = py.import("asyncio")?;
        // convert asyncio.sleep into a Rust Future
        pyo3_asyncio::tokio::into_future(asyncio.call_method1("sleep", (1.into_py(py),))?)
    })?;

    fut.await?;

    Ok(())
}

More details on the usage of this library can be found in the API docs and the primer below.

PyO3 Native Rust Modules

PyO3 Asyncio can also be used to write native modules with async functions.

Add the [lib] section to Cargo.toml to make your library a cdylib that Python can import.

[lib]
name = "my_async_module"
crate-type = ["cdylib"]

Make your project depend on pyo3 with the extension-module feature enabled and select your pyo3-asyncio runtime:

For async-std:

[dependencies]
pyo3 = { version = "0.14", features = ["extension-module"] }
pyo3-asyncio = { version = "0.14", features = ["async-std-runtime"] }
async-std = "1.9"

For tokio:

[dependencies]
pyo3 = { version = "0.14", features = ["extension-module"] }
pyo3-asyncio = { version = "0.14", features = ["tokio-runtime"] }
tokio = "1.4"

Export an async function that makes use of async-std:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
//! lib.rs

use pyo3::{prelude::*, wrap_pyfunction};

#[pyfunction]
fn rust_sleep(py: Python) -> PyResult<&PyAny> {
    pyo3_asyncio::async_std::future_into_py(py, async {
        async_std::task::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
        Ok(Python::with_gil(|py| py.None()))
    })
}

#[pymodule]
fn my_async_module(py: Python, m: &PyModule) -> PyResult<()> {
    m.add_function(wrap_pyfunction!(rust_sleep, m)?)?;

    Ok(())
}

}

If you want to use tokio instead, here's what your module should look like:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
//! lib.rs

use pyo3::{prelude::*, wrap_pyfunction};

#[pyfunction]
fn rust_sleep(py: Python) -> PyResult<&PyAny> {
    pyo3_asyncio::tokio::future_into_py(py, async {
        tokio::time::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
        Ok(Python::with_gil(|py| py.None()))
    })
}

#[pymodule]
fn my_async_module(py: Python, m: &PyModule) -> PyResult<()> {
    m.add_function(wrap_pyfunction!(rust_sleep, m)?)?;
    Ok(())
}
}

You can build your module with maturin (see the Using Rust in Python section in the PyO3 guide for setup instructions). After that you should be able to run the Python REPL to try it out.

maturin develop && python3
🔗 Found pyo3 bindings
🐍 Found CPython 3.8 at python3
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.04s
Python 3.8.5 (default, Jan 27 2021, 15:41:15)
[GCC 9.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import asyncio
>>>
>>> from my_async_module import rust_sleep
>>>
>>> async def main():
>>>     await rust_sleep()
>>>
>>> # should sleep for 1s
>>> asyncio.run(main())
>>>

Awaiting an Async Python Function in Rust

Let's take a look at a dead simple async Python function:

# Sleep for 1 second
async def py_sleep():
    await asyncio.sleep(1)

Async functions in Python are simply functions that return a coroutine object. For our purposes, we really don't need to know much about these coroutine objects. The key factor here is that calling an async function is just like calling a regular function, the only difference is that we have to do something special with the object that it returns.

Normally in Python, that something special is the await keyword, but in order to await this coroutine in Rust, we first need to convert it into Rust's version of a coroutine: a Future. That's where pyo3-asyncio comes in. pyo3_asyncio::into_future performs this conversion for us.

The following example uses into_future to call the py_sleep function shown above and then await the coroutine object returned from the call:

use pyo3::prelude::*;

#[pyo3_asyncio::tokio::main]
async fn main() -> PyResult<()> {
    let future = Python::with_gil(|py| -> PyResult<_> {
        // import the module containing the py_sleep function
        let example = py.import("example")?;

        // calling the py_sleep method like a normal function
        // returns a coroutine
        let coroutine = example.call_method0("py_sleep")?;

        // convert the coroutine into a Rust future using the
        // tokio runtime
        pyo3_asyncio::tokio::into_future(coroutine)
    })?;

    // await the future
    future.await?;

    Ok(())
}

Alternatively, the below example shows how to write a #[pyfunction] which uses into_future to receive and await a coroutine argument:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
#[pyfunction]
fn await_coro(coro: &PyAny) -> PyResult<()> {
    // convert the coroutine into a Rust future using the
    // async_std runtime
    let f = pyo3_asyncio::async_std::into_future(coro)?;

    pyo3_asyncio::async_std::run_until_complete(coro.py(), async move {
        // await the future
        f.await?;
        Ok(())
    })
}
}

This could be called from Python as:

import asyncio

async def py_sleep():
    asyncio.sleep(1)

await_coro(py_sleep())

If for you wanted to pass a callable function to the #[pyfunction] instead, (i.e. the last line becomes await_coro(py_sleep)), then the above example needs to be tweaked to first call the callable to get the coroutine:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
#[pyfunction]
fn await_coro(callable: &PyAny) -> PyResult<()> {
    // get the coroutine by calling the callable
    let coro = callable.call0()?;

    // convert the coroutine into a Rust future using the
    // async_std runtime
    let f = pyo3_asyncio::async_std::into_future(coro)?;

    pyo3_asyncio::async_std::run_until_complete(coro.py(), async move {
        // await the future
        f.await?;
        Ok(())
    })
}
}

This can be particularly helpful where you need to repeatedly create and await a coroutine. Trying to await the same coroutine multiple times will raise an error:

RuntimeError: cannot reuse already awaited coroutine

If you're interested in learning more about coroutines and awaitables in general, check out the Python 3 asyncio docs for more information.

Awaiting a Rust Future in Python

Here we have the same async function as before written in Rust using the async-std runtime:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
/// Sleep for 1 second
async fn rust_sleep() {
    async_std::task::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
}
}

Similar to Python, Rust's async functions also return a special object called a Future:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let future = rust_sleep();
}

We can convert this Future object into Python to make it awaitable. This tells Python that you can use the await keyword with it. In order to do this, we'll call pyo3_asyncio::async_std::future_into_py:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
use pyo3::prelude::*;

async fn rust_sleep() {
    async_std::task::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
}

#[pyfunction]
fn call_rust_sleep(py: Python) -> PyResult<&PyAny> {
    pyo3_asyncio::async_std::future_into_py(py, async move {
        rust_sleep().await;
        Ok(Python::with_gil(|py| py.None()))
    })
}
}

In Python, we can call this pyo3 function just like any other async function:

from example import call_rust_sleep

async def rust_sleep():
    await call_rust_sleep()

Managing Event Loops

Python's event loop requires some special treatment, especially regarding the main thread. Some of Python's asyncio features, like proper signal handling, require control over the main thread, which doesn't always play well with Rust.

Luckily, Rust's event loops are pretty flexible and don't need control over the main thread, so in pyo3-asyncio, we decided the best way to handle Rust/Python interop was to just surrender the main thread to Python and run Rust's event loops in the background. Unfortunately, since most event loop implementations prefer control over the main thread, this can still make some things awkward.

PyO3 Asyncio Initialization

Because Python needs to control the main thread, we can't use the convenient proc macros from Rust runtimes to handle the main function or #[test] functions. Instead, the initialization for PyO3 has to be done from the main function and the main thread must block on pyo3_asyncio::run_forever or pyo3_asyncio::async_std::run_until_complete.

Because we have to block on one of those functions, we can't use #[async_std::main] or #[tokio::main] since it's not a good idea to make long blocking calls during an async function.

Internally, these #[main] proc macros are expanded to something like this:
fn main() {
    // your async main fn
    async fn _main_impl() { /* ... */ }
    Runtime::new().block_on(_main_impl());
}
Making a long blocking call inside the Future that's being driven by block_on prevents that thread from doing anything else and can spell trouble for some runtimes (also this will actually deadlock a single-threaded runtime!). Many runtimes have some sort of spawn_blocking mechanism that can avoid this problem, but again that's not something we can use here since we need it to block on the main thread.

For this reason, pyo3-asyncio provides its own set of proc macros to provide you with this initialization. These macros are intended to mirror the initialization of async-std and tokio while also satisfying the Python runtime's needs.

Here's a full example of PyO3 initialization with the async-std runtime:

use pyo3::prelude::*;

#[pyo3_asyncio::async_std::main]
async fn main() -> PyResult<()> {
    // PyO3 is initialized - Ready to go

    let fut = Python::with_gil(|py| -> PyResult<_> {
        let asyncio = py.import("asyncio")?;

        // convert asyncio.sleep into a Rust Future
        pyo3_asyncio::async_std::into_future(
            asyncio.call_method1("sleep", (1.into_py(py),))?
        )
    })?;

    fut.await?;

    Ok(())
}

A Note About `asyncio.run`

In Python 3.7+, the recommended way to run a top-level coroutine with asyncio is with asyncio.run. In v0.13 we recommended against using this function due to initialization issues, but in v0.14 it's perfectly valid to use this function... with a caveat.

Since our Rust <--> Python conversions require a reference to the Python event loop, this poses a problem. Imagine we have a PyO3 Asyncio module that defines a rust_sleep function like in previous examples. You might rightfully assume that you can call pass this directly into asyncio.run like this:

import asyncio

from my_async_module import rust_sleep

asyncio.run(rust_sleep())

You might be surprised to find out that this throws an error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "example.py", line 5, in <module>
    asyncio.run(rust_sleep())
RuntimeError: no running event loop

What's happening here is that we are calling rust_sleep before the future is actually running on the event loop created by asyncio.run. This is counter-intuitive, but expected behaviour, and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a good way of solving this problem within PyO3 Asyncio itself.

However, we can make this example work with a simple workaround:

import asyncio

from my_async_module import rust_sleep

# Calling main will just construct the coroutine that later calls rust_sleep.
# - This ensures that rust_sleep will be called when the event loop is running,
#   not before.
async def main():
    await rust_sleep()

# Run the main() coroutine at the top-level instead
asyncio.run(main())

Non-standard Python Event Loops

Python allows you to use alternatives to the default asyncio event loop. One popular alternative is uvloop. In v0.13 using non-standard event loops was a bit of an ordeal, but in v0.14 it's trivial.

Using `uvloop` in a PyO3 Asyncio Native Extensions

# Cargo.toml

[lib]
name = "my_async_module"
crate-type = ["cdylib"]

[dependencies]
pyo3 = { version = "0.14", features = ["extension-module"] }
pyo3-asyncio = { version = "0.14", features = ["tokio-runtime"] }
async-std = "1.9"
tokio = "1.4"


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
//! lib.rs

use pyo3::{prelude::*, wrap_pyfunction};

#[pyfunction]
fn rust_sleep(py: Python) -> PyResult<&PyAny> {
    pyo3_asyncio::tokio::future_into_py(py, async {
        tokio::time::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
        Ok(Python::with_gil(|py| py.None()))
    })
}

#[pymodule]
fn my_async_module(_py: Python, m: &PyModule) -> PyResult<()> {
    m.add_function(wrap_pyfunction!(rust_sleep, m)?)?;

    Ok(())
}
}

$ maturin develop && python3
🔗 Found pyo3 bindings
🐍 Found CPython 3.8 at python3
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.04s
Python 3.8.8 (default, Apr 13 2021, 19:58:26)
[GCC 7.3.0] :: Anaconda, Inc. on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import asyncio
>>> import uvloop
>>>
>>> import my_async_module
>>>
>>> uvloop.install()
>>>
>>> async def main():
...     await my_async_module.rust_sleep()
...
>>> asyncio.run(main())
>>>

Using `uvloop` in Rust Applications

Using uvloop in Rust applications is a bit trickier, but it's still possible with relatively few modifications.

Unfortunately, we can't make use of the #[pyo3_asyncio::<runtime>::main] attribute with non-standard event loops. This is because the #[pyo3_asyncio::<runtime>::main] proc macro has to interact with the Python event loop before we can install the uvloop policy.

[dependencies]
async-std = "1.9"
pyo3 = "0.14"
pyo3-asyncio = { version = "0.14", features = ["async-std-runtime"] }

//! main.rs

use pyo3::{prelude::*, types::PyType};

fn main() -> PyResult<()> {
    pyo3::prepare_freethreaded_python();

    Python::with_gil(|py| {
        let uvloop = py.import("uvloop")?;
        uvloop.call_method0("install")?;

        // store a reference for the assertion
        let uvloop = PyObject::from(uvloop);

        pyo3_asyncio::async_std::run(py, async move {
            // verify that we are on a uvloop.Loop
            Python::with_gil(|py| -> PyResult<()> {
                assert!(uvloop
                    .as_ref(py)
                    .getattr("Loop")?
                    .downcast::<PyType>()
                    .unwrap()
                    .is_instance(pyo3_asyncio::async_std::get_current_loop(py)?)?);
                Ok(())
            })?;

            async_std::task::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;

            Ok(())
        })
    })
}

Additional Information

Managing event loop references can be tricky with pyo3-asyncio. See Event Loop References in the API docs to get a better intuition for how event loop references are managed in this library.
Testing pyo3-asyncio libraries and applications requires a custom test harness since Python requires control over the main thread. You can find a testing guide in the API docs for the testing module

PyO3 user guide