The Incredible Growth of Python (stackoverflow.blog)

[Stephan Houben]

Op 2017-09-10, Marko Rauhamaa schreef <marko at pacujo.net>:
> Stephan Houben <stephanh42 at gmail.com.invalid>:
>
>> Would we not eventually want a file object to deliver its lines
>> asynchronously (with non-blocking reads under the hood) if
>> iterated over with "async for", while preserving the current
>> blocking behavior in the "for" case?
>
> I'm not exactly sure what your point is.

I mean that I would imagine that 

1. functionality as is today available in `aiofiles' would
   at some point be integrated into the standard library,
   and

2. that this might be done in such a way that there is
   no distinction anymore between a normal file object
   and an "aiofiles" file object, unlike today.

> As for file objects supporting asynchronous iterators, I agree they
> should. 

OK, that is essentially my point 2, above.

> Linux is not quite ready for nonblocking file access yet (the
> kernel developers are busy trying to make it happen).
>
> Note that you will not only need an async version of a file iterator but
> also versions for the "open()" function, directory walking etc.

open() already supports non-blocking mode (as does read() and write(), of
course).
readdir() is indeed currently always blocking.

Stephan