Default value of smtp.EmailBackend.timeout not documented

[Baptiste Mispelon]

Django 1.7 introduces a new timeout parameter for the SMTP email backend: ​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend.timeout

However, there's no mention of the default value for this parameter (is there one? If not, what happens if you don't specify it?).

[Joel Vasallo]

To my knowledge there is no default timeout. Tracing it back to smtplib, back to socket. You need to specify one.

[mrezk]

So you think it is not worth to make clear that if unspecified, the default timeout will be default stmplib.STMP and stmplib.STMP_SSL timeout which ends up being socket._GLOBAL_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT?

[Baptiste Mispelon]

I do think it's valuable to document the behavior.

As things are now, the way to find this out is to read the source of the smtplib module which is less than ideal.

[mrezk]

Replying to bmispelon:

I do think it's valuable to document the behavior.

As things are now, the way to find this out is to read the source of the smtplib module which is less than ideal.

What do you think about:

If unspecified, timeout default value will be the default value
used in either :class:smtplib.SMTP or :class:smtplib.SMTP_SSL
(depending if the keyword argument use_ssl is True) which
is :data:socket._GLOBAL_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT for both cases.

[Baptiste Mispelon]

From what I understand, smtplib.SMTP doesn't have a default timeout of its own so if nothing is specified, socket.gettimeout() is what's going to be used (and if that's None, which I believe is the default, it means there won't be a timeout).

I think there's a way to cross link our documentation to python's official one (your current :class: one doesn't work I think) so if you could find how to do that, it'd be nice.

Thanks.

[Baptiste Mispelon]

PR here: ​https://github.com/django/django/pull/2561

I'm marking as patch needs improvement per my previous comment.

[mrezk]

Replying to bmispelon:

From what I understand, smtplib.SMTP doesn't have a default timeout of its own so if nothing is specified, socket.gettimeout() is what's going to be used (and if that's None, which I believe is the default, it means there won't be a timeout).

I think there's a way to cross link our documentation to python's official one (your current :class: one doesn't work I think) so if you could find how to do that, it'd be nice.

Thanks.

Thanks for the quick reply! Am I checking the wrong source code? As I can see here: ​http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/2.7/Lib/smtplib.py#l235, smtplib.SMTP explicitly sets timeout to socket._GLOBAL_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT.

:class: is working for me to cross link from django's documentation to python's official one. The element renders as <a class="reference external" href="​http://docs.python.org/library/smtplib.html#smtplib.SMTP_SSL" title="(in Python v2.7)"> which is correct. Is there another way to achieve the same result?

[mrezk]

Pull request updated

[mrezk]

Pull request updated

[Baptiste Mispelon <bmispelon@…>]

In 4e3d8ae61055dbb83d193585f2f36af6537b31cc:

Fixed #22443 -- Document smtp.EmailBackend.timeout default value

Django 1.7 introduces a new timeout parameter for the SMTP email backend:
​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend.timeout

However, there was no mention of the default value for this parameter.

[Baptiste Mispelon <bmispelon@…>]

In 5672b29d57bcd7041268727c0a288b33eb708af4:

[1.7.x] Fixed #22443 -- Document smtp.EmailBackend.timeout default value

Django 1.7 introduces a new timeout parameter for the SMTP email backend:
​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend.timeout

However, there was no mention of the default value for this parameter.

Backport of 4e3d8ae61055dbb83d193585f2f36af6537b31cc from master.