Python Language Processes and Threads Global Interpreter Lock
Example
Python multithreading performance can often suffer due to the Global Interpreter Lock. In short, even though you can have multiple threads in a Python program, only one bytecode instruction can execute in parallel at any one time, regardless of the number of CPUs.
As such, multithreading in cases where operations are blocked by external events - like network access - can be quite effective:
import threading
import time
def process():
time.sleep(2)
start = time.time()
process()
print("One run took %.2fs" % (time.time() - start))
start = time.time()
threads = [threading.Thread(target=process) for _ in range(4)]
for t in threads:
t.start()
for t in threads:
t.join()
print("Four runs took %.2fs" % (time.time() - start))
# Out: One run took 2.00s
# Out: Four runs took 2.00s
Note that even though each process took 2 seconds to execute, the four processes together were able to effectively run in parallel, taking 2 seconds total.
However, multithreading in cases where intensive computations are being done in Python code - such as a lot of computation - does not result in much improvement, and can even be slower than running in parallel:
import threading
import time
def somefunc(i):
return i * i
def otherfunc(m, i):
return m + i
def process():
for j in range(100):
result = 0
for i in range(100000):
result = otherfunc(result, somefunc(i))
start = time.time()
process()
print("One run took %.2fs" % (time.time() - start))
start = time.time()
threads = [threading.Thread(target=process) for _ in range(4)]
for t in threads:
t.start()
for t in threads:
t.join()
print("Four runs took %.2fs" % (time.time() - start))
# Out: One run took 2.05s
# Out: Four runs took 14.42s
In the latter case, multiprocessing can be effective as multiple processes can, of course, execute multiple instructions simultaneously:
import multiprocessing
import time
def somefunc(i):
return i * i
def otherfunc(m, i):
return m + i
def process():
for j in range(100):
result = 0
for i in range(100000):
result = otherfunc(result, somefunc(i))
start = time.time()
process()
print("One run took %.2fs" % (time.time() - start))
start = time.time()
processes = [multiprocessing.Process(target=process) for _ in range(4)]
for p in processes:
p.start()
for p in processes:
p.join()
print("Four runs took %.2fs" % (time.time() - start))
# Out: One run took 2.07s
# Out: Four runs took 2.30s
