A quick 'n dirty python extension providing shared memory dictionaries.

This extension creates a shared memory segment where (some) python values can be stored and accessed from distinct processes -- no IPC, no pickling/serializing, no wiring, not even locking will get in your way. Plain direct access to memory between parent/child processes. An uninteresting example:

import dshared
from multiprocessing import Process
dshared.init("mymem", 2 ** 10) #creates shared mem of size 2 ** 10

shm = dshared.dict()

def in_process_1():
  shm['d'] = {'key':'val'}

def later_on_in_process_2():
   print shm['d']['key']

p = Process(target=in_process_1)
p.start()
p.join()
p = Process(target=later_on_in_process_2)
p.start()
p.join()

important notes to keep in mind:

• Currently, None, ints/longs, strings, dicts and lists can be stored in the shared memory. Dicts and lists may be recursive.

• Instances of user defined classes are victims of evil voodoo when assigned to a shared dictionary (and so are the objects it points to! Somethings are just too wrong to be left unsaid).

• This code was not written with reliability in mind -- far from it. And if you noticed there is no "tests" directory here, that should settle any crazy ideas related to putting this stuff in production environments.

• There is no memory mechanism for collecting garbage (and it is unlikely that I will work on this). Once shared, forever lived.

• Last but not least, I do not intend to maintain or improve this library, as it was written to fix a very particular and temporary problem. So, in the case you find this extension somehow useful and wish to fork/improve it, feel free to let me know so I can refer visitors of this repository to your repository.

Use it at your own risk, bla bla bla...Now that you have been warned:

• Python (I'm using 2.7.5)
• boost libraries (in particular, Boost.Interprocess compatible with v. 1.54.0.1)
• A C++ compiler and python's development files (headers, libraries, etc)

• # aptitude install libboost-all-dev
• # python setup.py install