# futures mode

Using `concurrent.futures` cooperative mode in PyTango is relatively easy:

    >>> from tango.futures import DeviceProxy

    >>> dev = DeviceProxy("sys/tg_test/1")
    >>> dev.get_green_mode()
    tango.GreenMode.Futures

    >>> print(dev.state())
    RUNNING

The `tango.futures.DeviceProxy()` API is exactly the same as the standard `DeviceProxy`. The difference is in the semantics of the methods that involve synchronous network calls (constructor included) which may block the execution for a relatively big amount of time. The list of methods that have been modified to accept futures semantics are, on the `tango.futures.DeviceProxy()`:

- Constructor

- `state()`

- `status()`

- `read_attribute()`

- `write_attribute()`

- `write_read_attribute()`

- `read_attributes()`

- `write_attributes()`

- `ping()`

So how does this work in fact? I see no difference from using the standard `DeviceProxy`. Well, this is, in fact, one of the goals: be able to use a futures cooperation without changing the API. Behind the scenes the methods mentioned before have been modified to be able to work cooperatively.

All of the above methods have been boosted with two extra keyword arguments wait and timeout which allow to fine tune the behaviour. The wait parameter is by default set to True meaning wait for the request to finish (the default semantics when not using green mode). If wait is set to True, the timeout determines the maximum time to wait for the method to execute. The default is None which means wait forever. If wait is set to False, the timeout is ignored.

If wait is set to True, the result is the same as executing the standard method on a `DeviceProxy`. If, wait is set to False, the result will be a `concurrent.futures.Future`. In this case, to get the actual value you will need to do something like:

    >>> from tango.futures import DeviceProxy

    >>> dev = DeviceProxy("sys/tg_test/1")
    >>> result = dev.state(wait=False)
    >>> result
    <Future at 0x16cb310 state=pending>

    >>> # this will be the blocking code
    >>> state = result.result()
    >>> print(state)
    RUNNING

Here is another example using `read_attribute()`:

    >>> from tango.futures import DeviceProxy

    >>> dev = DeviceProxy("sys/tg_test/1")
    >>> result = dev.read_attribute('wave', wait=False)
    >>> result
    <Future at 0x16cbe50 state=pending>

    >>> dev_attr = result.result()
    >>> print(dev_attr)
    DeviceAttribute[
    data_format = tango.AttrDataFormat.SPECTRUM
          dim_x = 256
          dim_y = 0
     has_failed = False
       is_empty = False
           name = 'wave'
        nb_read = 256
     nb_written = 0
        quality = tango.AttrQuality.ATTR_VALID
    r_dimension = AttributeDimension(dim_x = 256, dim_y = 0)
           time = TimeVal(tv_nsec = 0, tv_sec = 1383923329, tv_usec = 451821)
           type = tango.CmdArgType.DevDouble
          value = array([ -9.61260664e-01,  -9.65924853e-01,  -9.70294813e-01,
            -9.74369212e-01,  -9.78146810e-01,  -9.81626455e-01,
            -9.84807087e-01,  -9.87687739e-01,  -9.90267531e-01,
            ...
            5.15044507e-1])
        w_dim_x = 0
        w_dim_y = 0
    w_dimension = AttributeDimension(dim_x = 0, dim_y = 0)
        w_value = None]