threads and dictionaries

[Peter Hansen]

bartig at pinpoint.com wrote:
> 
> I'm writing a program that passes dictionaries into a subroutine that's
> threaded.  Are dictionaries thread safe?  If so how would I go about
> making changes to the dictionaries inside of a thread so that other
> threads can take advantage this?

Following on Aahz's answer: it's not so much a question of whether
*dictionaries* are safe, as it is a question of whether the operation(s)
you intended to perform on a dictionary is (are) safe.  Multiple
operations are of course not safe without proper protection.  In Python
many simple operations on basic data types are safe.  Anything specific
in mind?