add aiter() and anext() functions

[sorcio]

BPO	31861
Nosy	@gvanrossum, @vstinner, @basak, @jab, @sorcio, @dimaqq, @1st1, @JelleZijlstra, @pablogsal, @isidentical, @belm0, @jack1142, @sweeneyde
PRs	bpo-31861: Add operator.aiter and operator.anext #8895 bpo-31861: Provide aiter and anext builtins #23847 bpo-31861: Complete the C-API docs for PyObject_GetAiter and PyAiter_Check #25004 bpo-31861: Fix possible crash in PyAnextAwaitable_New #25005 bpo-31861: Fix reference leak in builtin_anext_impl() #25008
Files	aiter_comp.py: tentative Python implementation

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2021-03-24.01:43:07.674>
created_at = <Date 2017-10-24.13:26:15.573>
labels = ['library', '3.10']
title = 'add aiter() and anext() functions'
updated_at = <Date 2021-04-07.22:59:05.539>
user = 'https://github.com/sorcio'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2021-04-07.22:59:05.539>
actor = 'vstinner'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2021-03-24.01:43:07.674>
closer = 'pablogsal'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2017-10-24.13:26:15.573>
creator = 'davide.rizzo'
dependencies = []
files = ['47242']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 31861
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 25.0
messages = ['304910', '304923', '304924', '304926', '305107', '319519', '319520', '323989', '323997', '324009', '337061', '337135', '375633', '380408', '381832', '383327', '383441', '389414', '389417', '389420', '389422', '389426', '389427', '390402', '390495']
nosy_count = 15.0
nosy_names = ['gvanrossum', 'vstinner', 'rb', 'jab', 'davide.rizzo', 'jmehnle', 'Dima.Tisnek', 'yselivanov', 'JelleZijlstra', 'pablogsal', 'BTaskaya', 'Eric Wieser', 'John Belmonte', 'jack1142', 'Dennis Sweeney']
pr_nums = ['8895', '23847', '25004', '25005', '25008']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue31861'
versions = ['Python 3.10']

[sorcio]

PEP-525 suggested that adding aiter() and anext() would need to wait until async __aiter__ is dropped in 3.7. bpo-31709 solved that, so now it would be possible to add them.

[1st1]

Guido, do we need a PEP to add aiter() and anext() builtins?

[gvanrossum]

do we need a PEP to add aiter() and anext() builtins?

No, just this tracker issue, a PR and a reviewer. (Sorry, I can't review
CPython code myself any more.)

[1st1]

No, just this tracker issue, a PR and a reviewer. (Sorry, I can't review
CPython code myself any more.)

Alright, I'll work on a PR after PEP 55x.

[sorcio]

I attempted to make a Python implementation (attached) to use in my code. There are a few questions in the comments.

One of the complications is the async equivalent of next with two arguments like next(iterator, default). It cannot return the result of __anext__() because it needs to catch StopAsyncIteration. So it should return an awaitable wrapper instead (in my Python code this is rendered as a coroutine). A secondary question is whether the default value should be returned as it is passed, or awaited on.

[JelleZijlstra]

Do these really need to be builtins?

They seem too specialized to be widely useful; I've personally never needed them in any async code I've written. It would make more sense to me to put them in a module like operators.

[1st1]

Do these really need to be builtins?

We're only beginning to see async iterators being used in the wild, so we can't have a definitive answer at this point.

They seem too specialized to be widely useful; I've personally never needed them in any async code I've written. It would make more sense to me to put them in a module like operators.

I think putting them to the operators module makes sense, at least for 3.8. Do you want to work on a pull request?

[jab]

Updating the issue title to reflect the decision to add these to the operator module rather than to built-ins.

Submitted a PR here: #8895

[1st1]

Great, thanks! There's someone working on a pr to add them as builtins (so that pr is in C). I'll have to take a look when i'm back from vacation at that pr too, before we can make a decision.

I've been to europython, pycon ru, and pybay conferences recently and the number of people who want these as builtins was surprisingly high.

[jab]

Interesting, thanks Yury!

I only saw the discussion here which implied these wouldn't go directly into builtins for 3.8 (and I searched here and in GitHub, and couldn't find the PR you mentioned either), so I'm curious if that was tracked somewhere. It'd be unfortunate if the work I did on that PR couldn't be used, but I'd be even happier to have these as builtins.

Thanks again for reviewing when you're back, and have a wonderful vacation in the meantime!

[dimaqq]

https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0525/#aiter-and-anext-builtins kinda promised aiter and anext built-ins.

This ticket seems idle.

Perhaps it's time for the decider club to either remove that language from PEP-525 or make a plan for aiter/anext?