Threading pool similar to the multiprocessing Pool?

Question

Is there a Pool class for worker threads, similar to the multiprocessing module's Pool class?

I like for example the easy way to parallelize a map function

def long_running_func(p):
    c_func_no_gil(p)

p = multiprocessing.Pool(4)
xs = p.map(long_running_func, range(100))

however I would like to do it without the overhead of creating new processes.

I know about the GIL. However, in my usecase, the function will be an IO-bound C function for which the python wrapper will release the GIL before the actual function call.

Do I have to write my own threading pool?

Answer 1

I just found out that there actually is a thread-based Pool interface in the multiprocessing module, however it is hidden somewhat and not properly documented.

It can be imported via

from multiprocessing.pool import ThreadPool

It is implemented using a dummy Process class wrapping a python thread. This thread-based Process class can be found in multiprocessing.dummy which is mentioned briefly in the docs. This dummy module supposedly provides the whole multiprocessing interface based on threads.

Answer 2

In Python 3 you can use concurrent.futures.ThreadPoolExecutor, i.e.:

executor = ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=10)
a = executor.submit(my_function)

See the docs for more info and examples.

Answer 3

Yes, and it seems to have (more or less) the same API.

import multiprocessing

def worker(lnk):
    ....    
def start_process():
    .....
....

if(PROCESS):
    pool = multiprocessing.Pool(processes=POOL_SIZE, initializer=start_process)
else:
    pool = multiprocessing.pool.ThreadPool(processes=POOL_SIZE, 
                                           initializer=start_process)

pool.map(worker, inputs)
....

Answer 4

For something very simple and lightweight (slightly modified from here):

from Queue import Queue
from threading import Thread


class Worker(Thread):
    """Thread executing tasks from a given tasks queue"""
    def __init__(self, tasks):
        Thread.__init__(self)
        self.tasks = tasks
        self.daemon = True
        self.start()

    def run(self):
        while True:
            func, args, kargs = self.tasks.get()
            try:
                func(*args, **kargs)
            except Exception, e:
                print e
            finally:
                self.tasks.task_done()


class ThreadPool:
    """Pool of threads consuming tasks from a queue"""
    def __init__(self, num_threads):
        self.tasks = Queue(num_threads)
        for _ in range(num_threads):
            Worker(self.tasks)

    def add_task(self, func, *args, **kargs):
        """Add a task to the queue"""
        self.tasks.put((func, args, kargs))

    def wait_completion(self):
        """Wait for completion of all the tasks in the queue"""
        self.tasks.join()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from random import randrange
    from time import sleep

    delays = [randrange(1, 10) for i in range(100)]

    def wait_delay(d):
        print 'sleeping for (%d)sec' % d
        sleep(d)

    pool = ThreadPool(20)

    for i, d in enumerate(delays):
        pool.add_task(wait_delay, d)

    pool.wait_completion()

To support callbacks on task completion you can just add the callback to the task tuple.

Answer 5

Hi to use the thread pool in Python you can use this library :

from multiprocessing.dummy import Pool as ThreadPool

and then for use, this library do like that :

pool = ThreadPool(threads)
results = pool.map(service, tasks)
pool.close()
pool.join()
return results

The threads are the number of threads that you want and tasks are a list of task that most map to the service.

Answer 6

Here's the result I finally ended up using. It's a modified version of the classes by dgorissen above.

File: threadpool.py

from queue import Queue, Empty
import threading
from threading import Thread


class Worker(Thread):
    _TIMEOUT = 2
    """ Thread executing tasks from a given tasks queue. Thread is signalable, 
        to exit
    """
    def __init__(self, tasks, th_num):
        Thread.__init__(self)
        self.tasks = tasks
        self.daemon, self.th_num = True, th_num
        self.done = threading.Event()
        self.start()

    def run(self):       
        while not self.done.is_set():
            try:
                func, args, kwargs = self.tasks.get(block=True,
                                                   timeout=self._TIMEOUT)
                try:
                    func(*args, **kwargs)
                except Exception as e:
                    print(e)
                finally:
                    self.tasks.task_done()
            except Empty as e:
                pass
        return

    def signal_exit(self):
        """ Signal to thread to exit """
        self.done.set()


class ThreadPool:
    """Pool of threads consuming tasks from a queue"""
    def __init__(self, num_threads, tasks=[]):
        self.tasks = Queue(num_threads)
        self.workers = []
        self.done = False
        self._init_workers(num_threads)
        for task in tasks:
            self.tasks.put(task)

    def _init_workers(self, num_threads):
        for i in range(num_threads):
            self.workers.append(Worker(self.tasks, i))

    def add_task(self, func, *args, **kwargs):
        """Add a task to the queue"""
        self.tasks.put((func, args, kwargs))

    def _close_all_threads(self):
        """ Signal all threads to exit and lose the references to them """
        for workr in self.workers:
            workr.signal_exit()
        self.workers = []

    def wait_completion(self):
        """Wait for completion of all the tasks in the queue"""
        self.tasks.join()

    def __del__(self):
        self._close_all_threads()


def create_task(func, *args, **kwargs):
    return (func, args, kwargs)

To use the pool

from random import randrange
from time import sleep

delays = [randrange(1, 10) for i in range(30)]

def wait_delay(d):
    print('sleeping for (%d)sec' % d)
    sleep(d)

pool = ThreadPool(20)
for i, d in enumerate(delays):
    pool.add_task(wait_delay, d)
pool.wait_completion()

Answer 7

The overhead of creating the new processes is minimal, especially when it's just 4 of them. I doubt this is a performance hot spot of your application. Keep it simple, optimize where you have to and where profiling results point to.

Answer 8

There is no built in thread based pool. However, it can be very quick to implement a producer/consumer queue with the Queue class.

From: https://docs.python.org/2/library/queue.html

from threading import Thread
from Queue import Queue
def worker():
    while True:
        item = q.get()
        do_work(item)
        q.task_done()

q = Queue()
for i in range(num_worker_threads):
     t = Thread(target=worker)
     t.daemon = True
     t.start()

for item in source():
    q.put(item)

q.join()       # block until all tasks are done