releasing interpreter lock in custom code?

[Bram Stolk]

Hello,


I've implemented, in C, a function that does a lot of I/O, and thus
can block for a long time.

If I execute this function in my Python script, it does not 
relinquish the global interpreter lock, like Python's native
blocking functions do, like I/O funcs, and time.sleep() func.

How can I have my func release the lock?

thanks!

  Bram Stolk