python3 multiprocessing: Server process

Python3

Server process

A manager object returned by Manager() controls a server process which holds Python objects and allows other processes to manipulate them using proxies.

A manager returned by Manager() will support types list, dict, Namespace, Lock, RLock, Semaphore, BoundedSemaphore,Condition, Event, Barrier, Queue, Value and Array. For example,

from multiprocessing import Process, Manager

def f(d, l):
    d[1] = '1'
    d['2'] = 2
    d[0.25] = None
    l.reverse()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    with Manager() as manager:
        d = manager.dict()
        l = manager.list(range(10))

        p = Process(target=f, args=(d, l))
        p.start()
        p.join()

        print(d)
        print(l)

will print

{0.25: None, 1: '1', '2': 2}
[9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]

Server process managers are more flexible than using shared memory objects because they can be made to support arbitrary object types. Also, a single manager can be shared by processes on different computers over a network. They are, however, slower than using shared memory.

ref: https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/multiprocessing.html