Dan McKinley

So I wrote this replacement version of Condition using the native posix support. Event and Semaphore are both written in terms of Condition, so you can use this as a fast route to getting native versions of those synchronization primitives. (Note, though, that there is a native posix semaphore, so implementing it in terms of a condition variable is not really necessary.)

I have trained myself to ask, "why hasn't anybody done this before?" when writing this sort of thing. And as always there's a really good reason: for a percentage of applications that is probably very close to one hundred percent, the difference in performance between this and the pure python version (which is implemented using polling) is not going to amount to a hill of beans. That was indeed the case for the application where I was trying to put this to use, and I reverted to the much simpler python Condition.

But there was no way to know for sure that that was the case without trying this, so if you find yourself in a similar situation, here is the code.

#include "Python.h"
#include "pthread.h"
#include "structmember.h"

typedef struct {
  PyObject_HEAD
  int set;
  pthread_cond_t cond;
  pthread_mutex_t lock;
} ConditionObject;

static int cond_init( ConditionObject* self, PyObject* args,
              PyObject* kwargs );
static void cond_free( ConditionObject* self );
static PyObject* cond_acquire( ConditionObject* self );
static PyObject* cond_release( ConditionObject* self );
static PyObject* cond_wait( ConditionObject* self, PyObject* args );
static PyObject* cond_notify( ConditionObject* self );
static PyObject* cond_notifyAll( ConditionObject* self );

static PyMemberDef cond_members[] = {
  {NULL}
};

static PyMethodDef cond_methods[] = {
  { "acquire", (PyCFunction)cond_acquire, METH_NOARGS, "" },
  { "release", (PyCFunction)cond_release, METH_NOARGS, "" },
  { "wait", (PyCFunction)cond_wait, METH_VARARGS, "" },
  { "notify", (PyCFunction)cond_notify, METH_NOARGS, "" },
  { "notifyAll", (PyCFunction)cond_notifyAll, METH_NOARGS, "" },
  { NULL }
};

static PyTypeObject ConditionType  = {
  PyObject_HEAD_INIT(NULL)
  0,                         /*ob_size*/
  "_pthread_cond.Condition", /*tp_name*/
  sizeof(ConditionObject),   /*tp_basicsize*/
  0,                         /*tp_itemsize*/
  (destructor)cond_free,     /*tp_dealloc*/
  0,                         /*tp_print*/
  0,                         /*tp_getattr*/
  0,                         /*tp_setattr*/
  0,                         /*tp_compare*/
  0,                         /*tp_repr*/
  0,                         /*tp_as_number*/
  0,                         /*tp_as_sequence*/
  0,                         /*tp_as_mapping*/
  0,                         /*tp_hash */
  0,                         /*tp_call*/
  0,                         /*tp_str*/
  0,                         /*tp_getattro*/
  0,                         /*tp_setattro*/
  0,                         /*tp_as_buffer*/
  Py_TPFLAGS_DEFAULT | Py_TPFLAGS_BASETYPE,        /*tp_flags*/
  "",                        /* tp_doc */
  0,                       /* tp_traverse */
  0,                       /* tp_clear */
  0,                       /* tp_richcompare */
  0,                       /* tp_weaklistoffset */
  0,                       /* tp_iter */
  0,                       /* tp_iternext */
  cond_methods,              /* tp_methods */
  cond_members,              /* tp_members */
  0,                         /* tp_getset */
  0,                         /* tp_base */
  0,                         /* tp_dict */
  0,                         /* tp_descr_get */
  0,                         /* tp_descr_set */
  0,                         /* tp_dictoffset */
  (initproc)cond_init,       /* tp_init */
  0,                         /* tp_alloc */
  0,                         /* tp_new */
};

static int cond_init( ConditionObject* self, PyObject* args,
              PyObject* kwargs ) {
  self->set = 0;
  int err = pthread_mutex_init( &self->lock, NULL );
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return -1;
  }
  err = pthread_cond_init( &self->cond, NULL );
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return -1;
  }
  return 0;
}

static void cond_free( ConditionObject* self ) {
  pthread_mutex_destroy( &self->lock );
  pthread_cond_destroy( &self->cond );
}

static PyObject* cond_acquire( ConditionObject* self ) {
  int err = 0;
  Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS;
  err = pthread_mutex_lock( &self->lock );
  Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS;
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return NULL;
  }
  Py_RETURN_NONE;
}

static PyObject* cond_release( ConditionObject* self ) {
  int err = pthread_mutex_unlock( &self->lock );
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return NULL;
  }
  Py_RETURN_NONE;
}

static PyObject* cond_wait( ConditionObject* self, PyObject* args ) {
  // for now timed waits are not supported (it's ignored)
  int err = 0;
  while( !self->set && err != EINVAL ) {
    Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS;
    err = pthread_cond_wait( &self->cond, &self->lock );
    Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS;
    if( PyErr_CheckSignals() ) {
      return NULL;
    }
  }
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return NULL;
  }
  Py_RETURN_NONE;
}

static PyObject* cond_notify( ConditionObject* self ) {
  self->set = 1;
  int err = 0;
  Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS;
  err = pthread_cond_signal( &self->cond );
  Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS;
  self->set = 0;
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return NULL;
  }
  Py_RETURN_NONE;
}

static PyObject* cond_notifyAll( ConditionObject* self ) {
  self->set = 1;
  int err = 0;
  Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS;
  err = pthread_cond_broadcast( &self->cond );
  Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS;
  self->set = 0;
  if( err != 0 ) {
    PyErr_SetFromErrno( PyExc_OSError );
    return NULL;
  }
  Py_RETURN_NONE;
}

static PyMethodDef module_methods[] = {
  {NULL}
};

PyMODINIT_FUNC
init_pthread_cond(void)
{
  ConditionType.tp_new = PyType_GenericNew;
  if( PyType_Ready( &ConditionType ) < 0 ) {
    return;
  }
  PyObject* mod = Py_InitModule( "_pthread_cond", module_methods );
  if( mod == NULL ) {
    return;
  }
  Py_INCREF( &ConditionType );
  PyModule_AddObject( mod, "Condition", (PyObject*)&ConditionType );
}