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

James Y Knight foom at fuhm.net
Thu Jan 7 21:36:37 CET 2010

On Jan 7, 2010, at 3:27 PM, Martin v. Löwis wrote:

I've been wondering whether it's possible to release the GIL in the regex engine during matching. I don't think that's possible. The regex engine can also operate on objects whose representation may move in memory when you don't hold the GIL (e.g. buffers that get mutated). Even if they stay in place - if their contents changes, regex results may be confusing.

It seems probably worthwhile to optimize for the common case of using
the regexp engine on an immutable object of type "str" or "bytes", and
allow releasing the GIL in that case, even if you have to keep it
for the general case.

James

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