Re: asynchronous python code blocks in org-mode

[John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>]

Karl Voit writes:

> * John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>
> Hi John!
>
>> I worked out some ideas on running Python blocks asynchronously in
>> org-mode, while seeing the output of the code, /and/ still capturing the
>> output in org-mode!
>
> Found the link to your video + blog on Twitter. On the weekend, I
> watched it with big eyes and tried your code on my side as well:
> great work!
>
>> It seems to work pretty well as a proof of concept, but the present
>> approach has some limitations, e.g. no sessions, no src-block :var, and
>> maybe others. These might be fixable at some point.
>>
>> Anyway, I thought I would share it, to see if anyone has thoughts on
>> it, and in case it looks useful to you.
>
> I'm loving it.
>
> I'd love to see this async method for shell script as well. Many
> shell snippets I am using do take some time: backup, audio
> conversion, bulk image conversion, ...

It turns out to be pretty trivial to modify this for sh. Change  change
org-babel-variable-assignments:python to
org-babel-variable-assignments:sh and python
to bash, and rename the function to org-babel-async-execute:sh, and you
should have it.

If you don't mind redefining an org command, this will let you put
:async in the header to trigger the asynchronous mode, otherwise, run
the usual way:

(defun org-babel-execute:sh (body params)
  "Execute a block of Shell commands with Babel.
This function is called by `org-babel-execute-src-block'."
  (let* ((session (org-babel-sh-initiate-session
                   (cdr (assoc :session params))))
         (async (assoc :async params))
         (stdin (let ((stdin (cdr (assoc :stdin params))))
                  (when stdin (org-babel-sh-var-to-string
                               (org-babel-ref-resolve stdin)))))
         (full-body (org-babel-expand-body:generic
                     body params (org-babel-variable-assignments:sh params))))
    (if async
        ;; run asynchronously
        (org-babel-async-execute:sh)
      ;; else run regularly
      (org-babel-reassemble-table
       (org-babel-sh-evaluate session full-body params stdin)
       (org-babel-pick-name
        (cdr (assoc :colname-names params)) (cdr (assoc :colnames params)))
       (org-babel-pick-name
        (cdr (assoc :rowname-names params)) (cdr (assoc :rownames
  params)))))))

I have not thought about sessions and asynchronous execution. It would
mean a queue and a different way to pass code to the process, which I
have not thought through yet. What to do when there are dependencies for
example,...

>
> 1) How big is the chance that we're going to see async babel block
> execution by default in a future org-mode release?
>
> 2) In the meantime: Wouldn't it be nice to have additional
> source-block definitions like python + apython (for asynchronous
> python) or sh + ash?

--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu