Problem: 'Threads' in Python?

[Ralph Sluiters]

Hi,
i've got a small problem with my python-script. It is a cgi-script, which is
called regulary (e.g. every 5 minutes) and returns a xml-data-structure.
This script calls a very slow function, with a duration of 10-40 seconds. To
avoid delays, i inserted a cache for the data. So, if the script is called,
it returns the last caculated data-structure and then the function is called
again and the new data is stored in the cache. (There is no problem to use
older but faster data)

My problem is, that the client (A Java program (or browser, command line))
waits, until the whole script has ended and so the cache is worthless. How
can I tell the client/browser/... that after the last print line there is no
more data and it can proceed? Or how can I tell the python script, that
everything after the return of the data (the retieval of the new data and
the storage in a file) can be done in an other thread or in the background?

Greetings

Ralph