Documentation

The documentation page about asyncio.wait_for() function says that:

If a timeout occurs, it cancels the task and raises TimeoutError.

The TimeoutError hyperlink leads to the built-in exception "TimeoutError", which would lead any sane user to think that asyncio.wait_for() raises builtin TimeoutError.

However, it doesn't:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import asyncio


async def main():
    try:
        await asyncio.wait_for(asyncio.sleep(100), timeout=1)
    except TimeoutError:
        print('timeout error')
    except Exception as exc:
        print('not a timeout error:', type(exc))


asyncio.run(main())

The above program prints:

not a timeout error: <class 'asyncio.exceptions.TimeoutError'>

Documentation should be changed to reflect what really happens in Python.

Linked PRs

• gh-110703: Add asyncio.wait_for() change notes for 3.11 #110818
• [3.12] gh-110703: Add asyncio.wait_for() change notes for 3.11 (GH-110818) #110826
• [3.11] gh-110703: Add asyncio.wait_for() change notes for 3.11 (GH-110818) #110827