1 Introduction
2 ------------
3
4 The parallel module provides elementary support for parallel programming in
5 Python using a fork-based process creation model in conjunction with a
6 channel-based communications model implemented using socketpair and poll.
7
8 Quick Start
9 -----------
10
11 Try running some of the tests:
12
13 PYTHONPATH=. python tests/create_loop.py
14 PYTHONPATH=. python tests/start_loop.py
15
16 (Simple loop demonstrations which use two different ways of creating and
17 starting the parallel processes.)
18
19 PYTHONPATH=. python tests/start_indexer.py <n> <directory>
20
21 (A text indexing demonstration, where <n> should be replaced by the number of
22 created/child/worker processes which will attempt to tokenize text files, and
23 where <directory> should be a directory containing text files to be indexed,
24 although HTML files will also work well enough. After indexing the files, a
25 prompt will appear, words or word fragments can be entered, and matching words
26 and their locations will be shown.)
27
28 Contact, Copyright and Licence Information
29 ------------------------------------------
30
31 No Web page has yet been made available for this work, but the author can be
32 contacted at the following e-mail address:
33
34 paul@boddie.org.uk
35
36 Copyright and licence information can be found in the docs directory - see
37 docs/COPYING.txt and docs/LICENCE.txt for more information.
38
39 Dependencies
40 ------------
41
42 This software depends on standard library features which are stated as being
43 available only on "UNIX"; it has only been tested on a GNU/Linux system.
44
45 Release Procedures
46 ------------------
47
48 Update the parallel __version__ attribute.
49 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
50 Update the release notes (see above).
51 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file.
52 Tag, export.
53 Archive, upload.
54 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
55
56 Making Packages
57 ---------------
58
59 To make Debian packages:
60
61 1. Create new package directories under packages/debian if necessary.
62 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
63 Debian tools happy:
64
65 ln -s packages/debian/python2.4-parallel/debian/
66
67 3. Run the package builder:
68
69 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
70
71 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
72 distribution's root directory.
