Hi! I've recently started using asyncio. My usage includes code which reads two bytes, but with a timeout. My naive approach was: rx = yield from asyncio.wait_for( reader.readexactly(2), 2.0) But of course this does not work as it could lose a byte if exactly one byte hasbeen received when the timeout was met. For asyncio beginners it's not obvious how to fix that and especially how to use shield(). My code now looks something like that: readexactly_task = None while True: try: if readexactly_task is None: # create a task to receive two bytes readexactly_task = asyncio.Task( reader.readexactly(2) ) # give the task two seconds to complete # shield it not to be canceled on timeout rx = yield from asyncio.wait_for( asyncio.shield(readexactly_task), 2.0) readexactly_task = None # task has finished if not rx: break # EOF met except asyncio.TimeoutError: # asyncio.wait_for was canceled # the task readexactly_task is still alive rx = None if rx: # process the received bytes print(rx) I think that it would be helpful to have such an example in the documentation for both StreamReader and shield. Of course, if readexactly had an argument 'timeout' things would have been easier... Regards, Dietmar