Python Locking Implementation (with threading module)
- by Matty
This is probably a rudimentary question, but I'm new to threaded programming in Python and am not entirely sure what the correct practice is.
Should I be creating a single lock object (either globally or being passed around) and using that everywhere that I need to do locking? Or, should I be creating multiple lock instances in each of the classes where I will be employing them. Take these 2 rudimentary code samples, which direction is best to go? The main difference being that a single lock instance is used in both class A and B in the second, while multiple instances are used in the first.
Sample 1
class A():
def __init__(self, theList):
self.theList = theList
self.lock = threading.Lock()
def poll(self):
while True:
# do some stuff that eventually needs to work with theList
self.lock.acquire()
try:
self.theList.append(something)
finally:
self.lock.release()
class B(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self,theList):
self.theList = theList
self.lock = threading.Lock()
self.start()
def run(self):
while True:
# do some stuff that eventually needs to work with theList
self.lock.acquire()
try:
self.theList.remove(something)
finally:
self.lock.release()
if __name__ == "__main__":
aList = []
for x in range(10):
B(aList)
A(aList).poll()
Sample 2
class A():
def __init__(self, theList,lock):
self.theList = theList
self.lock = lock
def poll(self):
while True:
# do some stuff that eventually needs to work with theList
self.lock.acquire()
try:
self.theList.append(something)
finally:
self.lock.release()
class B(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self,theList,lock):
self.theList = theList
self.lock = lock
self.start()
def run(self):
while True:
# do some stuff that eventually needs to work with theList
self.lock.acquire()
try:
self.theList.remove(something)
finally:
self.lock.release()
if __name__ == "__main__":
lock = threading.Lock()
aList = []
for x in range(10):
B(aList,lock)
A(aList,lock).poll()
