Why doesn't tkinter play nicely with multiprocessing?

Question

The following code hangs without doing anything in python 3.2.2 in linux:

import tkinter
from multiprocessing import Process

def f():
    root = tkinter.Tk(         


        

Answer 1

My suspicion is that the problem has to do with the connection to the X server (usually a socket). If this is created before the process is fork()-ed, the child process inherits this connection. But if it tries to use it, the X server gets confused.

After a cursory look at at Tkinter.py, it looks like maybe calling the NoDefaultRoot function before starting the process might be useful. It all depends on when the connection to the X server is made.

Otherwise importing Tkinter after the fork seems the way to go.