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1. Guide to asyncio

MicroPython's asyncio is pre-installed on all platforms except severely constrained ones such as the 1MB ESP8266. It supports CPython 3.8 syntax and aims to be a compatible subset of asyncio. The current version is 3.0.0.

1.1 Documents

asyncio official docs

Tutorial Intended for users with all levels of experience of asynchronous programming, including beginners.

Drivers describes device drivers for switches, pushbuttons, ESP32 touch buttons, ADC's and incremental encoders.

Interrupts is a guide to interfacing interrupts to asyncio.

Event-based programming is a guide to a way of writing applications and device drivers which largely does away with callbacks. The doc assumes some knowledge of asyncio.

Threading is a guide to the use of multi-threaded and multi-core programming. Code is offered to enable a asyncio application to deal with blocking functions.

1.2 Debugging tools

aiorepl This official tool enables an application to launch a REPL which is active while the application is running. From this you can modify and query the application and run asyncio scripts concurrently with the running application.

aioprof A profiler for asyncio applications: show the number of calls and the total time used by each task. Author Matt Trentini.

monitor enables a running asyncio application to be monitored using a Pi Pico, ideally with a scope or logic analyser. Normally requires only one GPIO pin on the target.

Image

1.3 Resources in this repo

1.3.1 Test/demo scripts

Documented in the tutorial.

1.3.2 Synchronisation primitives

Documented in the tutorial. Comprises:

  • Implementations of unsupported CPython primitives including barrier, queue and others.
  • A software retriggerable monostable timer class Delay_ms, similar to a watchdog.
  • Two primitives enabling waiting on groups of Event instances.

1.3.3 Threadsafe primitives

This doc describes issues linking asyncio code with code running on other cores or in other threads. The threadsafe directory provides:

  • A threadsafe primitive Message.
  • ThreadSafeQueue
  • ThreadSafeEvent Extends ThreadsafeFlag.

The doc also provides code to enable asyncio to handle blocking functions using threading.

1.3.4 Asynchronous device drivers

These are documented here:

  • Classes for interfacing switches, pushbuttons and ESP32 touch buttons.
  • Drivers for ADC's
  • Drivers for incremental encoders.

1.3.5 A scheduler

This lightweight scheduler enables tasks to be scheduled at future times. These can be assigned in a flexible way: a task might run at 4.10am on Monday and Friday if there's no "r" in the month.

1.3.6 Asynchronous interfaces

These device drivers are intended as examples of asynchronous code which are useful in their own right:

  • GPS driver Includes various GPS utilities.
  • HTU21D Temperature and humidity sensor.
  • I2C Use Pyboard I2C slave mode to implement a UART-like asynchronous stream interface. Uses: communication with ESP8266, or (with coding) to interface a Pyboard to I2C masters.
  • NEC IR A receiver for signals from IR remote controls using the popular NEC protocol.
  • HD44780 Driver for common character based LCD displays based on the Hitachi HD44780 controller.

2. V3 Overview

These notes are intended for users familiar with asyncio under CPython.

The MicroPython language is based on CPython 3.4. The asyncio library now supports a subset of the CPython 3.8 asyncio library. There are non-standard extensions to optimise services such as millisecond level timing. Its design focus is on high performance. Scheduling runs without RAM allocation.

The asyncio library supports the following features:

  • async def and await syntax.
  • Awaitable classes (using __iter__ rather than __await__).
  • Asynchronous context managers.
  • Asynchronous iterators.
  • asyncio.sleep(seconds).
  • Timeouts (asyncio.wait_for).
  • Task cancellation (Task.cancel).
  • Gather.

It supports millisecond level timing with the following:

  • asyncio.sleep_ms(time)

It includes the following CPython compatible synchronisation primitives:

  • Event.
  • Lock.
  • gather.

This repo includes code for the CPython primitives which are not yet officially supported.

The Future class is not supported, nor are the event_loop methods call_soon, call_later, call_at.

2.1 Outstanding issues with V3

V3 is still a work in progress. The following is a list of issues which I hope will be addressed in due course.

2.1.1 Fast I/O scheduling

There is currently no support for this: I/O is scheduled in round robin fashion with other tasks. There are situations where this is too slow and the scheduler should be able to poll I/O whenever it gains control.

2.1.2 Synchronisation primitives

These CPython primitives are outstanding:

  • Semaphore.
  • BoundedSemaphore.
  • Condition.
  • Queue.