What is the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in CPython?

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What is the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in CPython?

Key points

  • The GIL is specific to CPython, the standard implementation of Python.
  • It allows only one thread to execute Python bytecode at a time.
  • Without the GIL, multiple threads could access and modify Python objects concurrently, leading to potential data corruption.
  • The GIL can impact performance in multi-threaded applications.

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