[Python-Dev] timeout options in high-level networking modules (original) (raw)

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Thu Dec 22 16:52:47 CET 2005

Jim Fulton wrote:

Yesterday, I needed to make a web request in a program (actually a test) that could block indefinately, so I needed to set a socket timeout. Unfortunately, AFAICT none of urllib, urllib2, httplib provide options to set the timeout on the sockets they use. I ended up having to roll my own code to make the request.

It would be nice if high-level network modules, like the ones mentioned above, had options to provide a timeout. (For example, urlopen could grow an optional timout argument.) Thoughts? If we think this is a good idea, then someone who has time could start chipping away at it. I'm happy to work on this if I can find time. This would make a nice easy sprint project at PyCon too. That's a very good idea. At present the only option one has is to set a global socket.defaulttimout() or somehow monkey-patch the modules you want to use, and neither of those options are entirely satisfactory.

Basically any method that can create a new TCP connection should acquire an optional timeout=None parameter, right?

regards Steve

Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

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