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import implementation

Browser interface

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module browser.webworker

The webworker module provides a basic integration between Brython and WebWorkers. It allows one to run a python script in a web worker with relative ease. Currently there are two classes which can be used. A basic Worker class and a RPCWorker class.

Basic Worker class

This class allows one to run a script in the webworker communicating with it by sending messages.

We start the web worker by creating a new instance of the WorkerParent class. The constructor takes an url of the script to run (either absolute or relative to the brython source directory), arguments to the script (available via sys.argv in the script) and the contents of os.environ for the script 

from browser import webworker as ww
w = ww.WorkerParent('web_workers/test_worker.py',[1,2,3],{"test":"Ahoj"})

Communicating with the worker is done by sending messages, represented by the Message class. Note that while it will take some time before the worker is up and running (the worker is ready when its status w.status is S_RUNNING), we can start sending messages right away (they will be queued and sent when the worker is ready) 

m = ww.Message('ping',"hi")
r = w.post_message(m,want_reply=True)

Posting the message is done using the WorkerCommon.post_message method. It takes the message (an instance of the Message class) as the first parameter. The second parameter (want_reply) indicates that we want to wait for a reply to the message. The result will be a asyncio.Future instance which will be resolved with the reply once it arrives. Optionally, one can provide a timeout (the timeout) in seconds after which the future will be resolved with a timeout exception.

If we don't care about the reply (or if we don't expect a reply), we can omit the two parameters and just do 

w.post_message(ww.Message('quit',None))

Implementing the worker is straightforward. We first define methods which will handle the different messages: 

from browser.webworker import current_worker, Message
from browser import console

from sys import argv
from os import environ

def pong(self, message, **_):
    print('Web worker received message (',message.id,')', message.name, message.data)
    current_worker.post_reply(message, Message('pong', message.data))
        
def quit(self, *args, **kwargs):
    current_worker.terminate()

Notice how we used current_worker.post_reply instead of current_worker.post_message to indicate, that the message is a reply to a received message.

Then we need to tie these methods to the relevant messages. This is done through the WorkerCommon.bind_message method. Its first argument is the name of the message and the second argument is the method which will be called when a message arrives. 

current_worker.bind_message('ping', pong)
current_worker.bind_message('quit', quit)

Finally, we should let the parent know, that we are ready to start accepting messages. This is done by the current_worker.exec method. 

print("Starting test worker with args:", argv, "and environment", environ)
current_worker.exec()

The current_worker is an instance of the WorkerChild class and is only available in the worker (in the main thread it is always).

RPC Worker class

The WorkerParent and WorkerChild classes (representing the two sides of the connection) are very simple and can be used to build up more useful workers. An example of this is the RPCWorkerParent and RPCWorkerChild classes which are useful in a scenario, where we'd like to run python methods in a webworker as though they were running in the main thread. A typical program could look like this: 

from browser import webworker as ww
from asyncio import coroutine

@coroutine
def main(w):
    # Wait for the worker to start
    yield w.wait_for_status(ww.S_RUNNING)
    
    # Call the remote add method
    a = yield w.add(10,20)
    assert a == 30
    
    # Call the remote log method
    yield w.log("Test output")
    
    # Destroy the worker
    w.terminate()

# Create a new instance of the worker
w = ww.RPCWorkerParent('web_workers/test_rpc.py',[1,2,3],{"USER":"nobody"})

# Run the main method
main(w)

The difference from the simple WorkerParent example is that we now need to really wait for the worker to start up (until then we don't know what methods it provides). So we wrap everything in a main coroutine (async def in recent Python), where we can wait for the worker to be ready by yielding from (awaiting in recent Python) the WorkerCommon.wait_for_status method.

Then we call the add method, which needs to be defined in the worker, where it gets executed. The method returns an asyncio.Future instance representing the return value of the method call. Yielding it in our coroutine pauses its run until it is available. Then we call the log method and finally we terminate the worker using the WorkerCommon.terminate method.

Implementing the worker part is very similar to the previous case. The main difference is that instead of using the method WorkerCommon.bind_message we use the method RPCWorkerChild.register_method: 

from browser.webworker import current_worker, Message
from browser import console 

from sys import argv
from os import environ

def add(x, y):
    """Adds two numbers"""
    return x+y

def log(*args):
    print(*args)

# Register the `add` and `log` methods.
current_worker.register_method(add)
current_worker.register_method(log)```python


# Tell the parent we are ready
print("Starting test RPC worker with args:", argv, "and environment", environ)
current_worker.exec()import asyncio

Creating new Worker classes

Each new worker-type needs two classes --- the Parent and the Child class --- representing the worker in the main thread and in the worker thread, respectively. They are bound together using the CHILD_CLASS attribute of the Parent Worker class. This should be a string which can be used to import the Child class in the webworker (e.g. the RPCWorkerParent class has the attribute set to "browser.webworker.RPCWorkerChild"). Then the module takes care of instantiating the Child class in the web worker and storing it in webworker.current_worker.