ob-async enables asynchronous execution of org-babel src blocks, like this:

ob-async isn't tied to src blocks in a specific org-babel language. Simply add the keyword :async to the header-args of any org-babel src block and invoke ob-async-org-babel-execute-src-block.

Installation

ob-async is available in MELPA. If you'd rather install from source, make sure ob-async.el is on your load-path, like this.

(add-to-list 'load-path "$PATH_TO_OB_ASYNC_ROOT_DIR")

Require the package and ob-async will handle any source block which includes :async in its header-args.

(require 'ob-async)

Configuration

ob-async should work with no additional setup for most languages. However, there are a few known edge-cases which require extra configuration.

ob-async-no-async-languages-alist

Some org-babel languages (e.g., ob-python) define their own :async keyword that conflicts with ob-async. ob-async will ignore any languages in this blacklist, even if the :async keywords is present. Note that the -alist suffix is misleading; this variable actually represents a plain list and will be renamed in a future release.

Example:

(setq ob-async-no-async-languages-alist '("ipython"))

For additional context, see astahlman#35.

ob-async-pre-execute-src-block-hook

Some org-babel languages require additional user configuration. For example, ob-julia requires inferior-julia-program-name to be defined. Normally you would define such variables in your init.el, but src block execution occurs in an Emacs subprocess which does not evaluate init.el on startup. Instead, you can place initialization logic in ob-async-pre-execute-src-block-hook, which runs before execution of every src block.

Example:

(add-hook 'ob-async-pre-execute-src-block-hook
        '(lambda ()
           (setq inferior-julia-program-name "/usr/local/bin/julia")))

For additional context, see astahlman#37 and jwiegley/emacs-async#73.

Development

Cask manages dependencies and runs tests. Once Cask is installed, you can make test.

Troubleshooting

First, go through the troubleshooting checklist, troubleshooting.org. It's an org-mode file in this repository that's designed to diagnose issues with ob-async. If that doesn't solve your problem, include a copy of the entire file (which will include your #+RESULTS blocks) in a Github issue.