[Python-Dev] Import lock knowledge required!

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Jack Jansen wrote:
> 
> On zaterdag, feb 15, 2003, at 16:49 Europe/Amsterdam, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> 
>> I think we're running into a similar bootstrap problem as
>> we did when we had exceptions coded in Python. The solution
>> back then was to recode it in C. Perhaps the warnings module
>> should get the same treatment ?!
> 
> 
> There are other modules with the same potential problem. For instance, 
> the code that
> prints MacOS error messages imports a Python module to get at the texts 
> of the
> messages. I haven't had any reports of deadlocks, but I haven't looked 
> for them
> either, so it may be possible this code gets called with the import lock 
> held.
> 
> And at first glance code using cobject's PyCobject_import() may be at 
> risk too (only at first
> glance: I didn't check to see whether such code is ever executed with 
> with import lock held).

I wonder whether a general lock such as the one used in import
is such a good idea. Perhaps it should only lock the importing
of a specific module, keeping the locks in a dictionary indexed by
module name instead of a static C variable ?!

Then again it's hard to know the real name of the module being
searched before finding it...

I see a more general problem here: the lock prevent starting
up threaded applications which use client-server logic between
the threads. If the application's main thread starts a client
thread as a result of an import which then tries to import
other Python modules, you have a deadlock. (At least that's how
I understand the current implementation.)

Don't know about others, but I frequently use the idiom of
placing the server's main code in a separate module and then
have small startup script importing this module. This kind
of setup is also advertised for CGI programs, so it may not
be uncommon out there.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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