Python : Any way to get one process to have a write lock and others to just read on parallel?

Question

Let\'s say I have a dictionary that contains key-values where the value is an object with a lock. Each process needs to get the lock to modify the specific object, but the k

Answer 1

One more implementation of the ReadWriteLock, takes care of the writer starvation issue and supports promotion of read lock to write lock, if requested for during construction. It utilizes only one Lock and a Condition.

# From O'Reilly Python Cookbook by David Ascher, Alex Martelli
# With changes to cover the starvation situation where a continuous
#   stream of readers may starve a writer, Lock Promotion and Context Managers

class ReadWriteLock:
  """ A lock object that allows many simultaneous "read locks", but
  only one "write lock." """

  def __init__(self, withPromotion=False):
    self._read_ready = threading.Condition(threading.RLock(  ))
    self._readers = 0
    self._writers = 0
    self._promote = withPromotion
    self._readerList = []  # List of Reader thread IDs
    self._writerList = []  # List of Writer thread IDs

  def acquire_read(self):
    logging.debug("RWL : acquire_read()")
    """ Acquire a read lock. Blocks only if a thread has
    acquired the write lock. """
    self._read_ready.acquire(  )
    try:
      while self._writers > 0:
        self._read_ready.wait()
      self._readers += 1
    finally:
      self._readerList.append(threading.get_ident())
      self._read_ready.release(  )

  def release_read(self):
    logging.debug("RWL : release_read()")
    """ Release a read lock. """
    self._read_ready.acquire(  )
    try:
      self._readers -= 1
      if not self._readers:
        self._read_ready.notifyAll(  )
    finally:
      self._readerList.remove(threading.get_ident())
      self._read_ready.release(  )

  def acquire_write(self):
    logging.debug("RWL : acquire_write()")
    """ Acquire a write lock. Blocks until there are no
    acquired read or write locks. """
    self._read_ready.acquire(  )   # A re-entrant lock lets a thread re-acquire the lock
    self._writers += 1
    self._writerList.append(threading.get_ident())
    while self._readers > 0:
      # promote to write lock, only if all the readers are trying to promote to writer
      # If there are other reader threads, then wait till they complete reading
      if self._promote and threading.get_ident() in self._readerList and set(self._readerList).issubset(set(self._writerList)):
        break
      else:
        self._read_ready.wait(  )

  def release_write(self):
    logging.debug("RWL : release_write()")
    """ Release a write lock. """
    self._writers -= 1
    self._writerList.remove(threading.get_ident())
    self._read_ready.notifyAll(  )
    self._read_ready.release(  )

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

class ReadRWLock:
  # Context Manager class for ReadWriteLock
  def __init__(self, rwLock):
    self.rwLock = rwLock

  def __enter__(self):
    self.rwLock.acquire_read()
    return self         # Not mandatory, but returning to be safe

  def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, traceback):
    self.rwLock.release_read()
    return False        # Raise the exception, if exited due to an exception

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

class WriteRWLock:
  # Context Manager class for ReadWriteLock
  def __init__(self, rwLock):
    self.rwLock = rwLock

  def __enter__(self):
    self.rwLock.acquire_write()
    return self         # Not mandatory, but returning to be safe

  def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, traceback):
    self.rwLock.release_write()
    return False        # Raise the exception, if exited due to an exception

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------