[python] What kinds of global value mutation are thread-safe?

What kinds of global value mutation are thread-safe?

The Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) is used internally to ensure that only one thread runs in the Python VM at a time. In general, Python offers to switch among threads only between bytecode instructions; how frequently it switches can be set via sys.setcheckinterval. Each bytecode instruction and therefore all the C implementation code reached from each instruction is therefore atomic from the point of view of a Python program.

In theory, this means an exact accounting requires an exact understanding of the PVM bytecode implementation. In practice, it means that operations on shared variables of builtin data types (int, list, dict, etc) that “look atomic” really are.

For example, the following operations are all atomic (L, L1, L2 are lists, D, D1, D2 are dicts, x, y are objects, i, j are ints):

L.append(x)
L1.extend(L2)
x = L[i]
x = L.pop()
L1[i:j] = L2
L.sort()
x = y
x.field = y
D[x] = y
D1.update(D2)
D.keys()

These aren’t:

i = i+1
L.append(L[-1])
L[i] = L[j]
D[x] = D[x] + 1

Operations that replace other objects may invoke those other objects’ __del__method when their reference count reaches zero, and that can affect things. This is especially true for the mass updates to dictionaries and lists. When in doubt, use a mutex!

CATEGORY: library cleanup