The class template std::future provides a mechanism to access the result of asynchronous operations: An asynchronous operation (performed via std::async, std::packaged_task, or std::promise) can provide a std::future object to the creator of that asynchronous operation. The creator of the asynchronous operation can then use a variety of methods to query, wait for, or extract a value from the ... If the future is the result of a call to std::async that used lazy evaluation, this function returns immediately without waiting.

Understanding the Context

This function may block for longer than timeout_duration due to scheduling or resource contention delays. The standard recommends that a steady clock is used to measure the duration. The operation behaves as though set_value, set_exception, set_value_at_thread_exit, and set_exception_at_thread_exit acquire a single mutex associated with the promise object while updating the promise object. Calls to this function do not introduce data races with calls to get_future (therefore they need not synchronize with each other).

Key Insights

In summary: std::future is an object used in multithreaded programming to receive data or an exception from a different thread; it is one end of a single-use, one-way communication channel between two threads, std::promise object being the other end. The promise is the "push" end of the promise-future communication channel: the operation that stores a value in the shared state synchronizes-with (as defined in std::memory_order) the successful return from any function that is waiting on the shared state (such as std::future::get). A future statement is a directive to the compiler that a particular module should be compiled using syntax or semantics that will be available in a specified future release of Python. The future statement is intended to ease migration to future versions of Python that introduce incompatible changes to the language. It allows use of the new features on a per-module basis before the release in ...

Final Thoughts

What is __future__ in Python used for and how/when to use it, and how ... future (const future &) = delete; ~future (); future & operator =(const future &) = delete; future & operator =(future &&) noexcept; shared_future <R> share () noexcept; // retrieving the value /* see description */ get (); // functions to check state bool valid () const noexcept; void wait () const; template<class Rep, class Period>