[Python-Dev] Re: Useful thread project for 2.5?

[Greg Ward]

On 06 March 2005, Fazal Majid said:
> Since I started this, I might as well finish it. I do have some Python 
> developer experience (hey, I even voted for comp.lang.python back 
> when...) but not in the core interpreter itself.

What would be *really* spiffy is to provide a way for
externally-triggered thread dumps.  This is one of my top two Java
features [1].  The way this works in Java is a bit awkward --
"kill -QUIT" the Java process and it writes a traceback for every
running thread to stdout -- but it works.  Something similar ought to be
possible for Python, although optional (because Python apps can handle
signals themselves, unlike Java apps).

It could be as simple as this: calling

  sys.enablethreaddump(signal=signal.SIGQUIT)

from the program enables externally-triggered thread dumps via the
specified signal.

        Greg

[1] The other is compiler recognition of "@deprecated" in doc comments.

-- 
Greg Ward <gward at python.net>                         http://www.gerg.ca/
Think honk if you're a telepath.