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<title>11.16 SocketServer -- A framework for network servers</title>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION00131600000000000000000">
11.16 <tt class="module">SocketServer</tt> --
         A framework for network servers</A>
</H1>

<P>
<A NAME="module-SocketServer"></A>

<P>
The <tt class="module">SocketServer</tt> module simplifies the task of writing network
servers.

<P>
There are four basic server classes: <tt class="class">TCPServer</tt> uses the
Internet TCP protocol, which provides for continuous streams of data
between the client and server.  <tt class="class">UDPServer</tt> uses datagrams, which
are discrete packets of information that may arrive out of order or be
lost while in transit.  The more infrequently used
<tt class="class">UnixStreamServer</tt> and <tt class="class">UnixDatagramServer</tt> classes are
similar, but use <span class="Unix">Unix</span> domain sockets; they're not available on
non-<span class="Unix">Unix</span> platforms.  For more details on network programming, consult
a book such as W. Richard Steven's <em class="citetitle"
 >UNIX Network Programming</em>
or Ralph Davis's <em class="citetitle"
 >Win32 Network Programming</em>.

<P>
These four classes process requests <i class="dfn">synchronously</i>; each request
must be completed before the next request can be started.  This isn't
suitable if each request takes a long time to complete, because it
requires a lot of computation, or because it returns a lot of data
which the client is slow to process.  The solution is to create a
separate process or thread to handle each request; the
<tt class="class">ForkingMixIn</tt> and <tt class="class">ThreadingMixIn</tt> mix-in classes can be
used to support asynchronous behaviour.

<P>
Creating a server requires several steps.  First, you must create a
request handler class by subclassing the <tt class="class">BaseRequestHandler</tt>
class and overriding its <tt class="method">handle()</tt> method; this method will
process incoming requests.  Second, you must instantiate one of the
server classes, passing it the server's address and the request
handler class.  Finally, call the <tt class="method">handle_request()</tt> or
<tt class="method">serve_forever()</tt> method of the server object to process one or
many requests.

<P>
When inheriting from <tt class="class">ThreadingMixIn</tt> for threaded connection
behavior, you should explicitly declare how you want your threads
to behave on an abrupt shutdown. The <tt class="class">ThreadingMixIn</tt> class
defines an attribute <var>daemon_threads</var>, which indicates whether
or not the server should wait for thread termination. You should
set the flag explicitly if you would like threads to behave
autonomously; the default is <tt class="constant">False</tt>, meaning that Python
will not exit until all threads created by <tt class="class">ThreadingMixIn</tt> have
exited.

<P>
Server classes have the same external methods and attributes, no
matter what network protocol they use:

<P>

<P>

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<LI><A href="node535.html">11.16.1 Server Creation Notes</a>
<LI><A href="node536.html">11.16.2 Server Objects</a>
<LI><A href="node537.html">11.16.3 RequestHandler Objects</a>
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