Re: recursion limit exceeded in Python API, but there's only one function in traceback

Phil Muldoon
2014-10-17T17:31:16Z

On 17/10/14 16:04, Paul_Koning@dell.com wrote:
>
> On Oct 17, 2014, at 6:11 AM, Phil Muldoon <pmuldoon@redhat.com> wrote:
>
>> ...
>> Right. gdb.execute won't return until the command has completed.
>> Also the Python GIL has been acquired (as this is coming from the
>> Python interpreter) and so now Python is also blocked too. So in
>> effect the only thing running at this point is the gdb.execute command
>> that was invoked (in your case, the continue command). That will
>> return, and then the Python GIL will be released and the rest of the
>> script will continue.
>>
>> I have a patch I need to upstream that adds a release_gil keyword to
>> gdb.execute. This optionally releases the GIL before executing the
>> command. But I have not got around to that yet.
>
> Could you explain why gdb.execute should ever hold onto the GIL while performing the command? I view gdb.execute as akin to an I/O operation, which releases the GIL around the I/O. Another way to look at it is that execute is performing a GDB command. Either that isnÂ’t a Python operation Â— in which case the GIL is not needed since the data it protects wonÂ’t be touched. Or it is a command that (possibly indirectly) invokes another Python operation Â— in which case the GIL has to be released or you end up with a deadlock.
>

It (GDB) is not holding the GIL, Python is. The gdb.execute call at that
point has been called from the Python interpreter, and it has managed
the GIL until that point.

This means in current behavior, say you had three threads running,
they are all suspended during the call to gdb.execute. A user
submitted a request that we release the GIL (even though GDB did not
acquire it). The patch that I will submit (soon) just releases the GIL
so that on long-lived operations Python threads can still continue to
execute. It does this with SaveThread/RestoreThread. There is more
detail on this in the bugzilla posted.

Cheers

Phil