[Python-Dev] GIL required for all Python calls? (original) (raw)

Stefan Behnel stefan_ml at behnel.de
Thu Jan 7 15:05:23 CET 2010

MRAB, 07.01.2010 04:07:

I've been wondering whether it's possible to release the GIL in the regex engine during matching.

I know that it needs to have the GIL during memory-management calls, but does it for calls like PyUNICODETOLOWER

Py_UNICODE_TOLOWER looks safe to me at first glance.

or PyErrSetString?

Certainly not safe.

Is there an easy way to find out?

Release it and fix any crashes? Note that this isn't a safe solution, though, as some GIL requiring code may be platform specific. So a better approach might be to extract any obviously problematic stuff from the existing code (such as any exception handling, explicit ref-counting or object creation), and then try to release the GIL.

Stefan

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list