Solitaire et Solidaire
April 30th, 2008

Sean Bell graffiti in the Delancy St. station


Some Photos of Brooklyn Renaissance
April 24th, 2008

In front of City Hall, a man plays the steel drums in front of the ZipCar tent. Increased access to the birthright of every citizen (the automobile) was advocated. Free watermelon was served.

Zipcar tent at Borough Hall

Nearby a person reminds us (via bumper sticker) to drive safely, while parked in a painted bike lane.

Bike lane asshole

The placard in his window lets us know that this person is a hero, rather than an ordinary disgrace.

Placard

Back at Etsy Labs, time for the deliveries (that’s the sidewalk).

UPS on the sidewalk

Also near the Labs, signs that Brooklyn’s repressed SUV-owning minority are joining forces and taking back the sidewalks.

SUV club asshole on the sidewalk

Meanwhile, on Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard, a woman is brutally killed.

Fatal accident on Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard

If it occurs to anyone that traffic should not be hurtling through Brooklyn at speed, they don’t speak up.


Native Posix Python Condition Implementation
April 21st, 2008

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 );
}