How to execute a function several times asynchronously and get first result

Question

I have a function get_data(request) that requests some data to a server. Every time this function is called, it request data to a different server. All of them should return the same response.

I would like to get the response as soon as possible. I need to create a function that calls get_data several times, and returns the first response it gets.

EDIT:

I came up with an idea of using multithreading.Pipe(), but I have the feeling this is a very bad way to solve it, what do you think?:

def get_data(request, pipe):
    data = # makes the request to a server, this can take a random amount of time
    pipe.send(data)

def multiple_requests(request, num_servers):
    my_pipe, his_pipe = multithreading.Pipe()

    for i in range(num_servers):
        Thread(target = get_data, args = (request,his_pipe)).start()

    return my_pipe.recv()

multiple_requests("the_request_string", 6)

I think this is a bad way of doing it because you are passing the same pipe to all threads, and I don't really know but I guess that has to be very unsafe.

Answer 1

I think redis rq will be good for it. get_data is a job what you put in the queue six times. Jobs executes async, in the docs your also can read how to operate with results.