[Python-Dev] bsddb test case deadlocks fixed

Alex Martelli aleaxit at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 4 03:12:23 EST 2003


On Tuesday 04 November 2003 02:23 am, Gregory P. Smith wrote:
   ...
> There are no deadlock problems in the current 2.3.2 bsddb module as
> it does not have thread support enabled (meaning is likely to crash if
> someone uses it from multiple threads at once).

Ah!  Shows you how much I understood of your patch -- I hadn't grasped this!

> Net effect on release23-branch if we did this today:
>
>   + multithreaded bsddb use now allowed (instead of crashes or corruption)

Generally, extending functionality (as opposed to: fixing bugs or clarifying 
docs) is not a goal for 2.3.* -- but I don't know if the fact that bsddb 
isn't thread-safe in 2.3 counts as "a bug", or rather as functionality 
deliberately kept limited, to avoid e.g such bugs as the one you've just 
removed, and other possibilities you mention:

>   - multithreaded bsddb use could deadlock depending on how it is used.

I think that just having the 2.3.* docs explicitly mention the lack of 
thread-safety might then perhaps be better than backporting the changes.


Alex




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