Using Threads in Twisted

Introduction

Before you start using threads, make sure you do at the start of your program:

from twisted.python import threadable
threadable.init()

This will make certain parts of Twisted thread-safe so you can use them safely. However, note that most parts of Twisted are not thread-safe.

Running code in a thread-safe manner

Most code in Twisted is not thread-safe. For example, writing data to a transport from a protocol is not thread-safe. Therefore, we want a way to schedule methods to be run in the main event loop. This can be done using the function twisted.internet.interfaces.IReactorThreads.callFromThread:

from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.python import threadable
threadable.init(1)

def notThreadSafe(x):
     """do something that isn't thread-safe"""
     # ...

def threadSafeScheduler():
    """Run in thread-safe manner."""
    reactor.callFromThread(notThreadSafe, 3) # will run 'notThreadSafe(3)'
                                             # in the event loop

Running code in threads

Sometimes we may want to run methods in threads - for example, in order to access blocking APIs. Twisted provides methods for doing so using the IReactorThreads API (twisted.internet.interfaces.IReactorThreads). Additional utility functions are provided in twisted.internet.threads. Basically, these methods allow us to queue methods to be run by a thread pool.

For example, to run a method in a thread we can do:

from twisted.internet import reactor

def aSillyBlockingMethod(x):
    import time
    time.sleep(2)
    print x

# run method in thread
reactor.callInThread(aSillyBlockingMethod, "2 seconds have passed")

Utility Methods

The utility methods are not part of the twisted.internet.reactor APIs, but are implemented in twisted.internet.threads.

If we have multiple methods to run sequentially within a thread, we can do:

from twisted.internet import threads

def aSillyBlockingMethodOne(x):
    import time
    time.sleep(2)
    print x

def aSillyBlockingMethodTwo(x):
    print x

# run both methods sequentially in a thread
commands = [(aSillyBlockingMethodOne, ["Calling First"], {})]
commands.append((aSillyBlockingMethodTwo, ["And the second"], {}))
threads.callMultipleInThread(commands)

For functions whose results we wish to get, we can have the result returned as a Deferred:

from twisted.internet import threads

def doLongCalculation():
    # .... do long calculation here ...
    return 3

def printResult(x):
    print x

# run method in thread and get result as defer.Deferred
d = threads.deferToThread(doLongCalculation)
d.addCallback(printResult)

Managing the Thread Pool

The thread pool is implemented by twisted.python.threadpool.ThreadPool.

We may want to modify the size of the threadpool, increasing or decreasing the number of threads in use. We can do this do this quite easily:

from twisted.internet import reactor

reactor.suggestThreadPoolSize(20)

The size of the thread pool defaults to a maximum of 10 threads. Be careful that you understand threads and their resource usage before drastically altering the thread pool sizes.