Python threads: backed by OS threads?

[Konrad Hinsen]

Courageous <jkraska1 at san.rr.com> writes:

> Okay, I simply have to know for sure that Python
> threads are backed by full operating system threads.

They are.

> To wit: if I create multiple Python threads on a
> machine with multiple CPUs, I should be expecting
> take advantage of the additional CPU's, correct?

Not necessarily. The Python interpreter is not fully thread-safe,
therefore only one thread at a time can execute interpreted Python
code. The only way to take advantage of multiple CPUs is by executing
time-consuming C code, called from Python after releasing the
interpreter lock. The details are explained in the Extending & Embedding
manual at www.python.org.
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