Goroutines in Python with go(...)

In Go, goroutines are lightweight concurrent functions. In pychanio, we offer a similar primitive using the go(...) helper function. This allows you to spawn background tasks easily within Python’s asyncio framework.

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What is go(...)?

The go function is a thin wrapper over asyncio.create_task() that starts an asynchronous coroutine in the background - much like launching a goroutine in Go.

from pychanio import go

go(coro, *args, **kwargs)

• coro is any async def function

• *args are passed directly to the coroutine

• **kwargs are passed directly to the coroutine

Example:

import asyncio
from pychanio import go

async def worker(name):
    for i in range(3):
        await asyncio.sleep(0.5)
        print(f"{name} working {i}")

async def main():
    go(worker, "A")
    go(worker, "B")
    await asyncio.sleep(2)

asyncio.run(main())

Output:

A working 0
B working 0
A working 1
B working 1
A working 2
B working 2

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Advantages of go(...)

• Clean syntax for spawning concurrent tasks

• Avoids manual boilerplate of asyncio.create_task()

• Integrates well with channels and select

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Use With Channels

go(...) becomes even more powerful when combined with chan() and select(...):

from pychanio import chan, go

async def sender(ch):
    ch << "hello"

async def receiver(ch):
    val = await (ch >> None)
    print(f"received: {val}")

async def main():
    ch = chan()
    go(sender, ch)
    await receiver(ch)

asyncio.run(main())

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What’s Next?

Now that you know how to launch concurrent tasks, in the next chapter we’ll explore select(...) - the foundation for writing non-blocking multi-channel logic, similar to Go’s select statement.