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gh-125997: suggest efficient alternatives for time.sleep(0) #128752

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4 changes: 3 additions & 1 deletion Doc/library/os.rst
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -5411,6 +5411,8 @@ information, consult your Unix manpages.
The following scheduling policies are exposed if they are supported by the
operating system.

.. _os-scheduling-policy:

.. data:: SCHED_OTHER

The default scheduling policy.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -5514,7 +5516,7 @@ operating system.

.. function:: sched_yield()

Voluntarily relinquish the CPU.
Voluntarily relinquish the CPU. See :manpage:`sched_yield(2)` for details.


.. function:: sched_setaffinity(pid, mask, /)
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11 changes: 10 additions & 1 deletion Doc/library/time.rst
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -385,6 +385,8 @@ Functions
The suspension time may be longer than requested by an arbitrary amount,
because of the scheduling of other activity in the system.

.. rubric:: Windows implementation

On Windows, if *secs* is zero, the thread relinquishes the remainder of its
time slice to any other thread that is ready to run. If there are no other
threads ready to run, the function returns immediately, and the thread
Expand All @@ -393,12 +395,19 @@ Functions
<https://learn.microsoft.com/windows-hardware/drivers/kernel/high-resolution-timers>`_
which provides resolution of 100 nanoseconds. If *secs* is zero, ``Sleep(0)`` is used.

Unix implementation:
.. rubric:: Unix implementation

* Use ``clock_nanosleep()`` if available (resolution: 1 nanosecond);
* Or use ``nanosleep()`` if available (resolution: 1 nanosecond);
* Or use ``select()`` (resolution: 1 microsecond).

.. note::

To emulate a "no-op", use :keyword:`pass` instead of ``time.sleep(0)``.

To voluntarily relinquish the CPU, specify a real-time :ref:`scheduling
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Instead of just repeating "relinquish the CPU" from sched_yield's docs, I think it's worth being more specific. Something like "allow other threads to execute" and/or "temporarily release the GIL" could be useful.

The other issue here is that sched_yield is specific to Unix systems--what are Windows users supposed to use if they want to explicitly let another thread take the GIL, if not time.sleep()?

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They use time.sleep(0). The note is for the Unix section. On Windows, Sleep(0) relinquishes the CPU: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/win32/api/synchapi/nf-synchapi-sleep?redirectedfrom=MSDN.

A value of zero causes the thread to relinquish the remainder of its time slice to any other thread that is ready to run. If there are no other threads ready to run, the function returns immediately, and the thread continues execution. Windows XP: A value of zero causes the thread to relinquish the remainder of its time slice to any other thread of equal priority that is ready to run. If there are no other threads of equal priority ready to run, the function returns immediately, and the thread continues execution. This behavior changed starting with Windows Server 2003.

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Maybe I can add "On non-Windows platforms" if you want?

policy <os-scheduling-policy>` and use :func:`os.sched_yield` instead.

.. audit-event:: time.sleep secs

.. versionchanged:: 3.5
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