returning a value from a thread

[Jeff Epler]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 01:48:01PM +0000, Antoon Pardon wrote:
> I still have a question. Is the GIL necessary even if there is
> no sharing of data between threads?

Data is always shared between threads.  One object you're almost certainly
sharing between threads is "None".  In the CPython implementation, None
has a refcount just like any other object, and that refcount is modified
in any statement involving None, and by the implicit "return None" at
the end of a function.

The GIL has the effect (among other things) of ensuring that changes to
refcounts are serialized among threads.

Jeff
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