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<title>Choosing a Reactor and GUI Toolkit Integration</title>
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<h1>Choosing a Reactor and GUI Toolkit Integration</h1>
<h2>Overview</h2>
<p>Twisted provides a variety of implementations of the <code
class="API">twisted.internet.reactor</code>. The specialized
implementations are suited for different purposes and are
designed to integrate better with particular platforms.</p>
<p>The general purpose reactor implementations are:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#select">The select()-based reactor</a></li>
<li><a href="#poll">The poll()-based reactor</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Platform-specific reactor implementations exist for:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#creactor">cReactor for Unix</a></li>
<li><a href="#kqueue">KQueue for FreeBSD</a></li>
<li><a href="#win32">Win32</a></li>
<li><a href="#cfreactor">Mac OS X</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The remaining custom reactor implementations provide support
for integrating with the native event loops of various graphical
toolkits. This lets your Twisted application use all of the
usual Twisted APIs while still being a graphical application.</p>
<p>Twisted currently integrates with the following graphical
toolkits:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#gtk">GTK+ 1.2 and 2.0</a></li>
<li><a href="#qt">Qt</a></li>
<li><a href="#tkinter">Tkinter</a></li>
<li><a href="#wxpython">WxPython</a></li>
<li><a href="#win32">Win32</a></li>
<li><a href="#cfreactor">Cocoa</a></li>
<li><a href="#pyui">PyUI</a></li>
</ul>
<p>When using applications that runnable using <code>twistd</code>, e.g.
TAPs or plugins, there is no need to choose a reactor explicitly, since
this can be chosen using <code>twistd</code>'s -r option.</p>
<p>In all cases, the event loop is started by calling <code
class="python">reactor.run()</code>. In all cases, the event loop
should be stopped with <code
class="python">reactor.stop()</code>.</p>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT:</strong> installing a reactor should be the first thing
done in the app, since any code that does
<code class="python">from twisted.internet import reactor</code> will automatically
install the default reactor if the code hasen't already installed one.</p>
<h2>Reactor Functionality</h2>
<table cellpadding="7" cellspacing="0" border="1" title="Summary of reactor features">
<tr><td></td><th>TCP</th><th>SSL</th><th>UDP</th><th>Threading</th><th>Processes</th><th>Scheduling</th><th>Platforms</th></tr>
<tr><th>select()</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y (Unix only)</td><td>Y</td><td>Unix, Win32</td></tr>
<tr><th>poll()</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Unix</td></tr>
<tr><th>Win32</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Win32</td></tr>
<tr><th>cfreactor</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>OS X</td></tr>
<tr><th>GTK+</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y (Unix only)</td><td>Y</td><td>Unix, Win32</td></tr>
<tr><th>Qt</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y (Unix only)</td><td>Y</td><td>Unix, Win32</td></tr>
<tr><th>kqueue</th><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>FreeBSD</td></tr>
<tr><th>C</th><td>Y</td><td>N</td><td>N</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Y</td><td>Unix</td></tr>
</table>
<h2>General Purpose Reactors</h2>
<h3>Select()-based Reactor</h3><a name="select" />
<p>The SelectReactor is the default reactor.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import reactor
</pre>
<p>The SelectReactor may be explicitly installed by:</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import default
default.install()
</pre>
<h3>Poll()-based Reactor</h3><a name="poll" />
<p>The PollReactor will work on any platform that provides
<code class="python">poll()</code>. With larger numbers of
connected sockets, it may provide for better performance.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import pollreactor
pollreactor.install()
</pre>
<h2>Platform-Specific Reactors</h2>
<h3>cReactor for Unix</h3><a name="creactor" />
<p>The cReactor is a high-performance C implementation of the
Reactor interfaces. It is currently experimental and under
active development.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import cReactor
cReactor.install()
</pre>
<h3>KQueue</h3><a name="kqueue" />
<p>The KQueue Reactor allows Twisted to use FreeBSD's kqueue mechanism for
event scheduling. See instructions in the <code class="API"
>twisted.internet.kqreactor</code>'s
docstring for installation notes.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import kqreactor
kqreactor.install()
</pre>
<h3>Win32</h3><a name="win32" />
<p>The Win32 reactor is not yet complete and has various limitations
and issues that need to be addressed. The reactor supports GUI integration
with the win32gui module, so it can be used for native Win32 GUI applications.
</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import win32eventreactor
win32eventreactor.install()
</pre>
<h2>GUI Integration Reactors</h2>
<h3>GTK+</h3><a name="gtk" />
<p>Twisted integrates with <a href="http://www.daa.com.au/~james/pygtk/"
>PyGTK</a>, versions 1.2 and 2.0. Sample applications using GTK+ and
Twisted are available in the Twisted CVS.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import gtkreactor
gtkreactor.install()
</pre>
<h2>GUI Integration Reactors</h2>
<h3>Cocoa</h3><a name="cfreactor" />
<p>Twisted integrates with <a href="http://pyobjc.sf.net/"
>PyObjC</a>, version 1.0. Sample applications using Cocoa and Twisted
are available in the examples directory under <code>Cocoa</code>.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import cfreactor
cfreactor.install()
</pre>
<h3>Qt</h3><a name="qt" />
<p>An example Twisted application that uses Qt can be found in
<code class="py-filename">doc/examples/qtdemo.py</code>.</p>
<p>When installing the reactor, pass a QApplication instance,
and if you don't a new one will be created for you.</p>
<pre class="python">
from qt import QApplication
app = QApplication([])
from twisted.internet import qtreactor
qtreactor.install(app)
</pre>
<h2>Non-Reactor GUI Integration</h2>
<h3>Tkinter</h3><a name="tkinter" />
<p>The support for <a href="http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/"
>Tkinter</a> doesn't use a specialized reactor. Instead, there is
some specialized support code:</p>
<pre class="python">
from Tkinter import *
from twisted.internet import tksupport
root = Tk()
root.withdraw()
# Install the Reactor support
tksupport.install(root)
# at this point build Tk app as usual using the root object,
# and start the program with "reactor.run()", and stop it
# with "reactor.stop()".
</pre>
<h3>wxPython</h3><a name="wxpython" />
<p>As with <a href="#tkinter">Tkinter</a>, the support for integrating
Twisted with a <a href="http://www.wxpython.org">wxPython</a>
application uses specialized support code rather than a simple reactor.</p>
<pre class="python">
from wxPython.wx import *
from twisted.internet import wxsupport, reactor
myWxAppInstance = wxApp(0)
wxsupport.install(myWxAppInstance)
</pre>
<p>However, this has issues when runnin on Windows, so Twisted now
comes with alternative wxPython support using a reactor. Using
this method is probably better. Initialization is done in two
stages. In the first, the reactor is installed:</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import wxreactor
wxreactor.install()
</pre>
<p>Later, once a <code class="python">wxApp</code> instance has
been created, but before <code class="python">reactor.run()</code>
is called:</p>
<pre class="python">
myWxAppInstance = wxApp(0)
reactor.registerWxApp(myWxAppInstance)
</pre>
<p>An example Twisted application that uses WxWindows can be found
in <code class="py-filename">doc/examples/wxdemo.py</code>.</p>
<h3>PyUI</h3><a name="pyui" />
<p>As with <a href="#tkinter">Tkinter</a>, the support for integrating
Twisted with a <a href="http://pyui.sourceforge.net">PyUI</a>
application uses specialized support code rather than a simple reactor.</p>
<pre class="python">
from twisted.internet import pyuisupport, reactor
pyuisupport.install(args=(640, 480), kw={'renderer': 'gl'})
</pre>
<p>An example Twisted application that uses PyUI can bve found in <code
class="py-filename">doc/examples/pyuidemo.py</code>.</p>
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