How to process websocket data in a non-blocking manner?

Question

How to process websocket data in a non-blocking manner?

The below example shows that when ws.recv() is called and nothing is received, ws.recv() blocks the rest of the code from running:

from websocket import create_connection
url = 'ws://example.com'
ws = create_connection(url)

ws.recv()  # blocks

How to implement something along the lines of (without blocking):

from websocket import create_connection
url = 'ws://example.com'
ws = create_connection(url)

# non-blocking
if ws.not_empty():
    ws.recv()  

How to process websocket data in a non-blocking manner?

Answer 1

If using Python >= 3.5 is an option, you might want to check out asyncio which allows you to write single-threaded, yet concurrent code. This is typically useful for handling i/o bound code such as networking.

Be aware there is a bit of a learning curve if its your first time using asyncio.

Once you've familiarized yourself with the basics, there is an excellent websockets module which leverages asyncio:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/websockets