Threadpool
##########

.. -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-

:Title: Easy to use object-oriented thread pool framework
:Author: Christopher Arndt
:Version: 1.2.7
:Date: 2009-10-07
:License: MIT License


Description
===========

A thread pool is an object that maintains a pool of worker threads to perform
time consuming operations in parallel. It assigns jobs to the threads
by putting them in a work request queue, where they are picked up by the
next available thread. This then performs the requested operation in the
background and puts the results in another queue.

The thread pool object can then collect the results from all threads from
this queue as soon as they become available or after all threads have
finished their work. It's then possible to define callbacks to handle
each result as it comes in.

.. note::
    This module is regarded as an extended example, not as a finished product.
    Feel free to adapt it too your needs.


Basic usage
===========

::

    >>> pool = ThreadPool(poolsize)
    >>> requests = makeRequests(some_callable, list_of_args, callback)
    >>> [pool.putRequest(req) for req in requests]
    >>> pool.wait()

See the end of the module source code for a longer, annotated usage example.


Documentation
=============

You can view the API documentation, generated by epydoc, here:

    `API documentation`_

The documentation is also packaged in the distribution.

.. _api documentation:
    http://chrisarndt.de/projects/threadpool/api/


Download
========

You can download the latest version of this module here:

    `Download directory`_

or see the colorized source code:

    threadpool.py_

You can also install it from the Cheeseshop_ via easy_install_::

    [sudo] easy:install threadpool

Or you can check out the latest development version from the Subversion
repository::

    svn co svn://svn.chrisarndt.de/projects/threadpool/trunk threadpool

.. _download directory:
    http://chrisarndt.de/projects/threadpool/download/
.. _threadpool.py:
    http://chrisarndt.de/projects/threadpool/threadpool.py.html
.. _cheeseshop: http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/threadpool
.. _easy_install: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall


Discussion
==========

The basic concept and some code was taken from the book "Python in a Nutshell"
by Alex Martelli, copyright O'Reilly 2003, ISBN 0-596-00188-6, from section
14.5 "Threaded Program Architecture". I wrapped the main program logic in the
``ThreadPool`` class, added the ``WorkRequest`` class and the callback system
and tweaked the code here and there.

There are some other recipes in the Python Cookbook, that serve a similar
purpose. This one distinguishes itself by the following characteristics:

* Object-oriented, reusable design

* Provides callback mechanism to process results as they are returned from the
  worker threads.

* ``WorkRequest`` objects wrap the tasks assigned to the worker threads and
  allow for easy passing of arbitrary data to the callbacks.

* The use of the ``Queue`` class solves most locking issues.

* All worker threads are daemonic, so they exit when the main programm exits,
  no need for joining.

* Threads start running as soon as you create them. No need to start or stop
  them. You can increase or decrease the pool size at any time, superfluous
  threads will just exit when they finish their current task.

* You don't need to keep a reference to a thread after you have assigned the
  last task to it. You just tell it: "don't come back looking for work, when
  you're done!"

* Threads don't eat up cycles while waiting to be assigned a task, they just
  block when the task queue is empty (though they wake up every few seconds to
  check whether they are dismissd).


Notes
-----

Due to the parallel nature of threads, you have to keep some things in mind:

* Do not use simultaneous threads for tasks were they compete for a single,
  scarce resource (e.g. a harddisk or stdout). This will probably be slower
  than taking a serialized approach.

* If you call ``ThreadPool.wait()`` the main thread will block until _all_
  results have arrived. If you only want to check for results that are available
  immediately, use ``ThreadPool.poll()``.

* The results of the work requests are not stored anywhere. You should provide
  an appropriate callback if you want to do so.


References
==========

There are several other recipes similar to this module in the Python Cookbook,
for example:

* http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/203871
* http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/196618
* http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/302746


News
====

.. include:: CHANGELOG.txt