Python › Async Generators & Async Context Managers
How do you handle backpressure when an async generator produces items faster than the consumer can process them?
AdvancedAnswer
Since 'async for' inherently pauses the PRODUCER (the generator's execution) at each yield until the consumer calls __anext__() again, async generators are naturally backpressure-aware — the producer literally cannot get ahead of the consumer, unlike a callback-based push model where you'd need an explicit buffer or queue.
async def slow_consumer(source):
async for item in source:
await asyncio.sleep(1) # slow processing
process(item)
# the producer naturally waits here until we call __anext__ againReal-world example Processing a fast-arriving async data stream (like a websocket feed) without needing to manually implement a bounded buffer or queue.