I don't have a concrete case where a socket object's setblocking() method is called with a value in one module, handed off to another module (which does not know what the first did with it) which in turn also calls setblocking() with the same value. It certainly seems that that not is a common pattern, but perhaps one could argue a valid pattern, since the state of blocking/nonblocking is maintained in the kernel behind the fcntl() system calls. Here is what I am seeing concretely. This is the syscall pattern from eventlet/wsgi.py + eventlet/greenio.py (after removing redundants call to set_nonblocking (see https://bitbucket.org/portante/eventlet/commits/cc27508f4bbaaea566aecb51cf6c...)). First, these are the call stacks for the three calls to the set_nonblocking() method, made in one HTTP request; the greenio.py:set_nonblocking() method wraps the socketmodule.c:setblocking() method: pid 1385 File "/usr/bin/swift-object-server", line 22, in <module> run_wsgi(conf_file, 'object-server', default_port=6000, **options) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/swift/common/wsgi.py", line 194, in run_wsgi run_server(max_clients) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/swift/common/wsgi.py", line 158, in run_server wsgi.server(sock, app, NullLogger(), custom_pool=pool) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/wsgi.py", line 598, in server *client_socket = sock.accept()* File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 163, in accept return type(self)(client), addr File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 133, in __init__ *set_nonblocking(fd)* pid 1385 File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenpool.py", line 80, in _spawn_n_impl func(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/wsgi.py", line 516, in process_request proto = self.protocol(socket, address, self) File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/SocketServer.py", line 616, in __init__ self.setup() File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/wsgi.py", line 174, in setup *self.rfile = conn.makefile('rb', self.rbufsize)* File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 219, in makefile return _fileobject(self.dup(), *args, **kw) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 214, in dup newsock = type(self)(sock) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 133, in __init__ *set_nonblocking(fd)* pid 1385 File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenpool.py", line 80, in _spawn_n_impl func(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/wsgi.py", line 516, in process_request proto = self.protocol(socket, address, self) File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/SocketServer.py", line 616, in __init__ self.setup() File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/wsgi.py", line 175, in setup *self.wfile = conn.makefile('wb', self.wbufsize)* File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 219, in makefile return _fileobject(self.dup(), *args, **kw) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 214, in dup newsock = type(self)(sock) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/eventlet/greenio.py", line 133, in __init__ *set_nonblocking(fd)* The first one above is expected, the next two unexpectedly result in fcntl() calls on the same fd. The strace looks like: accept(8, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(54375), sin_addr=inet_addr("127.0.0.1")}, [16]) = 14 fcntl(14, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR) fcntl(14, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK) = 0 # *self.rfile = conn.makefile('rb', self.rbufsize)* fcntl(14, F_GETFL) = 0x802 (flags O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK) fcntl(14, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK) = 0 # *self.wfile = conn.makefile('wb', self.wbufsize)* fcntl(14, F_GETFL) = 0x802 (flags O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK) fcntl(14, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK) = 0 recvfrom(14, "GET /sdb1/234456/AUTH_del0/gprfc"..., 8192, 0, NULL, NULL) = 353 getsockname(14, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(6010), sin_addr=inet_addr("127.0.0.1")}, [16]) = 0 ... It appears that conn.makefile() is attempting to dup() the fd, but rfile and wfile end up with objects that share the same fd contained in conn. For eventlet/wsgi.py based webservers, OpenStack Swift is the one I am working with right now, handles millions of requests a day on our customer systems. Seems like these suggested code changes are trivial compared to the number of system calls that can be saved. Thanks for indulging on this topic, -peter On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 12:38 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 8:49 PM, Peter Portante wrote:

...

I noticed while stracing a process that sock.setblocking() calls always result in pairs of fcntl() calls on Linux. Checking 2.6.8, 2.7.3, and 3.3.0 Modules/socketmodule.c, the code seems to use the following (unless I have missed something):

delay_flag = fcntl(s->sock_fd, F_GETFL, 0); if (block) delay_flag &= (~O_NONBLOCK); else delay_flag |= O_NONBLOCK; fcntl(s->sock_fd, F_SETFL, delay_flag);

Perhaps a check to see the flags changed might be worth making?

int orig_delay_flag = fcntl(s->sock_fd, F_GETFL, 0); if (block) delay_flag = orig_delay_flag & (~O_NONBLOCK); else delay_flag = orig_delay_flag | O_NONBLOCK; if (delay_flag != orig_delay_flag) fcntl(s->sock_fd, F_SETFL, delay_flag);

OpenStack Swift using the Eventlet module, which sets the accepted socket non-blocking, resulting in twice the number of fcntl() calls. Not a killer on performance, but it seems simple enough to save a system call here.

This would seem to be a simple enough fix, but it seems you are only fixing it if a *redundant* call to setblocking() is made (i.e. one that attempts to set the flag to the value it already has). Why would this be a common pattern? Even if it was, is the cost of one extra fcntl() call really worth making the code more complex?

-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)

Since Linux 2.6.27, it's possible to set SOCK_NONBLOCK directly at the creation of the socket (using socket() and accept4()). So you don't need any extra call. I implemented something similar for SOCK_CLOEXEC flag to implement the PEP 433. See for example: http://hg.python.org/features/pep-433/file/1097ffc652f4/Modules/socketmodule... and: http://hg.python.org/features/pep-433/file/1097ffc652f4/Modules/socketmodule... The PEP 433 (Easier suppression of file descriptor inheritance): http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-0433/ But I added a new keyword argument to socket.socket() and socket.socket.accept() for that. I don't know if you can do something similar without adding a new argument. -- Instead of two calls to fcntl() (2 syscalls), you can also use "int opt = 1; ioctl(fd, FIONBIO, &opt);" (1 syscall). Victor