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Author sbt
Recipients kristjan.jonsson, loewis, paul.moore, pitrou, python-dev, sbt, vstinner
Date 2012-06-19.13:08:55
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Message-id <1340111336.87.0.5800885121.issue15038@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
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Content
Standard condition variables have the following guarantees:

* if there are any waiters then signal()/notify() will awaken at least one of them;
* if there are any waiters then broadcast()/notify_all() will awaken all of them.

The implementation in condvar.h does not have these guarantees since a future waiter (possibly the signalling thread) may steal the signal intended for a current waiter.

In many cases this does not matter, but in some it can cause a deadlock.  For instance, consider

    from threading import Condition, Thread
    import time

    def set_to_value(value, cond, state):
        while 1:
            with cond:
                while state.value == value:
                   cond.wait()
                state.value = value
                print("set_to_value(%s)" % value)
                cond.notify_all()

    class state:
        value = False

    c = Condition()

    for i in (0, 1):
        t = Thread(target=set_to_value, args=(i, c, state))
        t.daemon = True
        t.start()

    time.sleep(5)

This *should* make state.value bounce back and forth between 0 and 1 continually for five seconds.

But using a condition variable implemented like in condvar.h this program is liable to deadlock because the signalling thread steals the signal intended for the other thread.

I think a note about this should be added to condvar.h.
History
Date User Action Args
2012-06-19 13:08:57sbtsetrecipients: + sbt, loewis, paul.moore, pitrou, kristjan.jonsson, vstinner, python-dev
2012-06-19 13:08:56sbtsetmessageid: <1340111336.87.0.5800885121.issue15038@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2012-06-19 13:08:56sbtlinkissue15038 messages
2012-06-19 13:08:55sbtcreate