Memory model for apache/modwsgi application in python?

In a regular application (like on Windows), when objects/variables are created on a global level it is available to the entire program during the entire duration the program is running.

In a web application written in PHP for instance, all variables/objects are destroyed at the end of the script so everything has to be written to the database.

a) So what about python running under apache/modwsgi? How does that work in regards to the memory?

b) How do you create objects that persist between web page requests and 开发者_C百科how do you ensure there isn't threading issues in apache/modwsgi?

Go read the following from the official mod_wsgi documentation:

http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ProcessesAndThreading

It explains the various modes things can be run in and gives some general guidelines about data scope and sharing.

All Python globals are created when the module is imported. When module is re-imported the same globals are used.

Python web servers do not do threading, but pre-forked processes. Thus there is no threading issues with Apache.

The lifecycle of Python processes under Apache depends. Apache has settings how many child processes are spawned, keep in reserve and killed. This means that you can use globals in Python processes for caching (in-process cache), but the process may terminate after any request so you cannot put any persistent data in the globals. But the process does not necessarily need to terminate and in this regard Python is much more efficient than PHP (the source code is not parsed for every request - but you need to have the server in reload mode to read source code changes during the development).

Since globals are per-process and there can be N processes, the processes share "web server global" state using mechanisms like memcached.

Usually Python globals only contain

• Setting variables set during the process initialization

• Cached data (session/user neutral)