[Python-Dev] Making python C-API thread safe (try 2) (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
Fri Sep 12 16:11:28 EDT 2003

Yes, I'm aware of the None problem at least (only one instance of it). Please enlighten me about the other critical sections? Object allocation/freeing?

None is only the molecule at the tip of the iceberg. If you're talking about threads within a Python interpreter, doing just about anything at all to any Python object is a critical section. The amount of locking required to deal with that at a fine-grained level would totally kill performance, not to mention being hugely tedious and error-prone to implement.

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+ University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a | Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc. | greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+

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