Note: This document is relevant for the version of Twisted that was current at IPC10. It has since been superseded by many changes to the Python API. It is remaining unchanged for historical reasons, but please refer to documentation for the specific system you are looking for and not these papers for current information.
Twisted has undergone several major revisions since Moshe Zadka and I wrote the "The Twisted Network Framework". Most of these changes have not deviated from the central vision of the framework, but almost all of the code listings have been re-visited and enhanced in some way.
So, while the paper was correct at the time that it was originally written, a few things have changed which have invalidated portions of it.
Most significant is the fact that almost all methods which
pass callbacks of some kind have been changed to take no
callback or error-callback arguments, and instead return an
instance of a twisted.python.defer.Deferred. This means
that an asynchronous function can be easily identified visually
because it will be of the form: async_obj.asyncMethod("foo").addCallbacks(succeded,
failed). There is also a utility method addCallback which makes it more
convenient to pass additional arguments to a callback function
and omit special-case error handling.
While it is still backwards compatible, twisted.internet.passport has been re-named
to twisted.cred, and the various
classes in it have been split out into submodules of that
package, and the various remote-object superclasses have been
moved out of twisted.spread.pb and put into
twisted.spread.flavors.
Application.listenOn has been
replaced with the more descripively named Application.listenTCP, Application.listenUDP, and Application.listenSSL.
twisted.web.widgets has progressed
quite far since the paper was written! One description
specifically given in the paper is no longer correct:
The namespace for evaluating the template expressions is obtained by scanning the class hierarchy for attributes, and getting each of those attributes from the current instance. This means that all methods will be bound methods, so indicating "self" explicitly is not required. While it is possible to override the method for creating namespaces, using this default has the effect of associating all presentation code for a particular widget in one class, along with its template. If one is working with a non-programmer designer, and the template is in an external file, it is always very clear to the designer what functionality is available to them in any given scope, because there is a list of available methods for any given class.
This is still possible to avoid breakages in old code, but
after some experimentation, it became clear that simply passing
self was an easier method for
creating the namespace, both for designers and programmers.
In addition, since the advent of Zope3, interoperability
with Zope has become increasingly interesting possibility for
the Twisted development team, since it would be desirable if
Twisted could use their excellent strategy for
content-management, while still maintaining Twisted's
advantages in the arena of multi-protocol servers. Of
particular interest has been Zope Presentation Templates, since
they seem to be a truly robust solution for keeping design
discrete from code, compatible with the event-based method in
which twisted.web.widgets processes web requests. twisted.web.widgets.ZopePresentationTemplate
may be opening soon in a theatre near you!
The following code examples are corrected or modernized versions of the ones that appear in the paper.
Listing 9: A remotely accessible object and accompanying call
# Server Side
class MyObject(pb.Referenceable):
def remote_doIt(self):
return "did it"
# Client Side
...
def myCallback(result):
print result # result will be 'did it'
def myErrback(stacktrace):
print 'oh no, mr. bill!'
print stacktrace
myRemoteReference.doIt().addCallbacks(myCallback,
myErrback)
Listing 10: An object responding to its calling perspective
# Server Side
class Greeter(pb.Viewable):
def view_greet(self, actor):
return "Hello %s!\n" % actor.perspectiveName
# Client Side
...
remoteGreeter.greet().addCallback(sys.stdout.write)
...
Listing 12: A client for Echoer objects.
from twisted.spread import pb
from twisted.internet import main
def gotObject(object):
print "got object:",object
object.echo("hello network".addCallback(gotEcho)
def gotEcho(echo):
print 'server echoed:',echo
main.shutDown()
def gotNoObject(reason):
print "no object:",reason
main.shutDown()
pb.getObjectAt("localhost", 8789, gotObject, gotNoObject, 30)
main.run()
Listing 13: A PB server using twisted's "passport"
authentication.
from twisted.spread import pb
from twisted.internet import main
class SimplePerspective(pb.Perspective):
def perspective_echo(self, text):
print 'echoing',text
return text
class SimpleService(pb.Service):
def getPerspectiveNamed(self, name):
return SimplePerspective(name, self)
if __name__ == '__main__':
import pbecho
app = main.Application("pbecho")
pbecho.SimpleService("pbecho",app).getPerspectiveNamed("guest").makeIdentity("guest")
app.listenTCP(pb.portno, pb.BrokerFactory(pb.AuthRoot(app)))
app.save("start")
Listing 14: Connecting to an Authorized Service
from twisted.spread import pb
from twisted.internet import main
def success(message):
print "Message received:",message
main.shutDown()
def failure(error):
print "Failure...",error
main.shutDown()
def connected(perspective):
perspective.echo("hello world").addCallbacks(success, failure)
print "connected."
pb.connect("localhost", pb.portno, "guest", "guest",
"pbecho", "guest", 30).addCallbacks(connected,
failure)
main.run()
Listing 15: A Twisted GUI application
from twisted.internet import main, ingtkernet
from twisted.spread.ui import gtkutil
import gtk
ingtkernet.install()
class EchoClient:
def __init__(self, echoer):
l.hide()
self.echoer = echoer
w = gtk.GtkWindow(gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
vb = gtk.GtkVBox(); b = gtk.GtkButton("Echo:")
self.entry = gtk.GtkEntry(); self.outry = gtk.GtkEntry()
w.add(vb)
map(vb.add, [b, self.entry, self.outry])
b.connect('clicked', self.clicked)
w.connect('destroy', gtk.mainquit)
w.show_all()
def clicked(self, b):
txt = self.entry.get_text()
self.entry.set_text("")
self.echoer.echo(txt).addCallback(self.outry.set_text)
l = gtkutil.Login(EchoClient, None, initialService="pbecho")
l.show_all()
gtk.mainloop()
Listing 16: an event-based web widget.
from twisted.spread import pb
from twisted.python import defer
from twisted.web import widgets
class EchoDisplay(widgets.Gadget, widgets.Presentation):
template = """<H1>Welcome to my widget, displaying %%%%echotext%%%%.</h1>
<p>Here it is: %%%%getEchoPerspective()%%%%</p>"""
echotext = 'hello web!'
def getEchoPerspective(self):
return ['<b>',
pb.connect("localhost", pb.portno,
"guest", "guest", "pbecho", "guest", 1).
addCallbacks(self.makeListOf, self.formatTraceback)
,'</b>']
def makeListOf(self, echoer):
return [echoer.echo(self.echotext).addCallback(lambda x: [x])]
if __name__ == "__main__":
from twisted.web import server
from twisted.internet import main
a = main.Application("pbweb")
a.listenTCP(8080, server.Site(EchoDisplay()))
a.run()