Re: PL/Python initialization cleanup - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Peter Eisentraut
Subject Re: PL/Python initialization cleanup
Date
Msg-id 4d15a129-8004-483d-861f-bcac01d88a79@eisentraut.org
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: PL/Python initialization cleanup  ("Matheus Alcantara" <matheusssilv97@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: PL/Python initialization cleanup
List pgsql-hackers
On 05.01.26 16:08, Matheus Alcantara wrote:
> On Wed Dec 31, 2025 at 5:47 AM -03, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> As I was working through steps to make PL/Python more thread-safe, I
>> noticed that the initialization code of PL/Python is pretty messy.  I
>> think some of this has grown while both Python 2 and 3 were supported,
>> because they required different initialization steps, and we had some
>> defenses against accidentally running both at the same time.  But that
>> is over, and right now a lot of this doesn't make sense anymore.  For
>> example, the function PLy_init_interp() said "Initialize the Python
>> interpreter ..." but it didn't actually do this, and PLy_init_plpy()
>> said "initialize plpy module" but it didn't do that either (or at least
>> they used the term "initialize" in non-standard ways).
>>
>> Here are some patches to clean this up.  After this change, all the
>> global initialization is called directly from _PG_init(), and the plpy
>> module initialization is all called from its registered initialization
>> function PyInit_plpy().  (For the thread-safety job, the plpy module
>> initialization will need to be rewritten using a different API.  That's
>> why I'm keen to have it clearly separated.)  I also tried to add more
>> comments and make existing comments more precise.  There was also some
>> apparently obsolete or redundant code that could be deleted.
>>
>> Surely, all of this will need some more rounds of careful scrutiny, but
>> I think the overall code arrangement is correct and an improvement.
> 
> 0001, 0003 and 0004 looks good to me, just a small comment on 0002:
> 
> -    /*
> -     * PyModule_AddObject does not add a refcount to the object, for some odd
> -     * reason; we must do that.
> -     */
> -    Py_INCREF(exc);
> -    PyModule_AddObject(mod, modname, exc);
> -
>       /*
>        * The caller will also store a pointer to the exception object in some
> -     * permanent variable, so add another ref to account for that.  This is
> -     * probably excessively paranoid, but let's be sure.
> +     * permanent variable, so add another ref to account for that.
>        */
>       Py_INCREF(exc);
> 
> The later code comment say "so add another ref to account for that", but
> you've removed the previous Py_INCREF() call. The returned object
> PyErr_NewException() already have a refcount increased for usage? If
> that's not the case I think that the "add another ref..." don't seems
> correct because IIUC we are increasing the ref count for the first time,
> so there is no "another" refcount being increased.

The reference created by PyErr_NewException() is "stolen" by 
PyModule_AddObject(), so we need to create another one for returning the 
object from the function and storing it in the permanent variable.  I 
have updated the comment in this new patch version.  But I think the 
actual code is correct.

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