Non-blocking Thrift-Server with Django

Question

I need to access data coming from a Django webapp via a Thrift interface. I'd like to do this in a non-blocking way (eg. using libevent/gevent...) but there aren't many example implementations (in python) around, so I'd like ask here for any examples/hints/experiences!

Please note that this question is about using Thrift, not any other protocol, and I know that there might be better frameworks for this purpose than Django, but using it is also a requirement!

Answer 1

This can be done by implementing a thrift server within a Django admin command. See the link for the file structure you will need. In the command file, which you may call "thrift_server.py", you would then implement the usual thrift server as follows:

import sys
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand

from thrift.transport import TSocket
from thrift.transport import TTransport
from thrift.protocol import TBinaryProtocol
from thrift.server import TServer

#import thrift files here

#now define the service handler according to your thrift method declaration
class ServiceHandler:
    def __init__(self):
        pass
        #self.log = {}
    def thriftMethodName(self, arg):
        print "hello world!"
        #here you have access to anything in the django framework
        return True

class Command(BaseCommand):
    def handle(self, *args, **kwargs):
        handler = ServiceHandler()
        processor = SaleService.Processor(handler)
        transport = TSocket.TServerSocket(port=9090)
        tfactory = TTransport.TBufferedTransportFactory()
        pfactory = TBinaryProtocol.TBinaryProtocolFactory()

        server = TServer.TSimpleServer(processor, transport, tfactory, pfactory)

        # You could do one of these for a multithreaded server
        #server = TServer.TThreadedServer(processor, transport, tfactory, pfactory)
        #server = TServer.TThreadPoolServer(processor, transport, tfactory, pfactory)

        self.stdout.write('Starting thrift server...')
        server.serve()
        self.stdout.write('done.')

Notice that multithreaded server options are described above, though I have not tested these yet.

You could then run the daemon as follows:

(virtualenv) /django_project/ > python manage.py thrift_server