Socket connection

[Jp Calderone]

On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 03:32:15PM -0600, sik0fewl wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm having some problems with some socket/thread code.
> 
> What I'm doing is starting another thread to do the actual connect() so 
> that my process doesn't block while connect does socket.getaddrinfo().
> 
> What I have works fine if the host is localhost, otherwise it doesn't 
> seem to ever connect.
> 
> Here's the basis of my code:
> 
> -----
> 
> def threaded_connect(sock, address, port = None):
>     try:
>         sock.connect((address, port))
>     except:
>         pass
> 
> x = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
> x.setblocking(0)
> 
> thread.start_new_thread(threaded_connect, (x, 'www.hotmail.com', 80))
> 
> while 1:
> 	# then I do select that waits for x to become writable
> 	# (ie, connected)
> 
> -----
> 
> Like I said, the select() works fine when connecting to localhost, but 
> when I try any other address (like www.hotmail.com) the select keeps 
> timing out and x never becomes connected.

  You've made the socket non-blocking.  This means socket.connect() will
return right away, *even if it has not yet connected*.  Even leaving this
aside, your code has a race condition, nothing says that the connection in
the thread will be made before the select() loop begins.

  It's hard to say exactly why x never shows up in your select, partly
because threaded programs are difficult to predict, and partly because you
haven't included the select-using code in the example.

  I'd recommend -either- using threads -or- using non-blocking sockets, not
both (I'd further recommend not using threads).

  There are libraries available to make this sort of programming easier. 
You might check out Twisted - http://www.twistedmatrix.com/

  Jp

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