What's the equivalent of moment-yielding (from Tornado) in Twisted?

Question

Part of the implementation of inlineCallbacks is this:

        if isinstance(result, Deferred):
            # a deferred was yielded, get the result.
            def gotResult(r):
                if waiting[0]:
                    waiting[0] = False
                    waiting[1] = r
                else:
                    _inlineCallbacks(r, g, deferred)

            result.addBoth(gotResult)
            if waiting[0]:
                # Haven't called back yet, set flag so that we get reinvoked
                # and return from the loop
                waiting[0] = False
                return deferred

            result = waiting[1]
            # Reset waiting to initial values for next loop.  gotResult uses
            # waiting, but this isn't a problem because gotResult is only
            # executed once, and if it hasn't been executed yet, the return
            # branch above would have been taken.


            waiting[0] = True
            waiting[1] = None

As it is shown, if in am inlineCallbacks-decorated function I make a call like this:

@inlineCallbacks
def myfunction(a, b):
    c = callsomething(a)
    yield twisted.internet.defer.succeed(None)
    print callsomething2(b, c)

This yield will get back to the function immediately (this means: it won't be re-scheduled but immediately continue from the yield). This contrasts with Tornado's tornado.gen.moment (which isn't more than an already-resolved Future with a result of None), which makes the yielder re-schedule itself, regardless the future being already resolved or not.

How can I run a behavior like the one Tornado does when yielding a dummy future like moment?

Answer 1

The equivalent might be something like a yielding a Deferred that doesn't fire until "soon". reactor.callLater(0, ...) is generally accepted to create a timed event that doesn't run now but will run pretty soon. You can easily get a Deferred that fires based on this using twisted.internet.task.deferLater(reactor, 0, lambda: None).

You may want to look at alternate scheduling tools instead, though (in both Twisted and Tornado). This kind of re-scheduling trick generally only works in small, simple applications. Its effectiveness diminishes the more tasks concurrently employ it.

Consider whether something like twisted.internet.task.cooperate might provide a better solution instead.