Advanced Python Programming

Simulating race conditions in Python

Before we discuss a solution that we can implement to solve the problem of race conditions, let's try to simulate the problem in Python. If you have already downloaded the code for this book from the GitHub page, go ahead and navigate to the Chapter21 folder. Let's take a look at the Chapter21/example1.py file—specifically, the update() function, as follows:

# Chapter21/example1.pyimport randomimport timedef update():    global counter    current_counter = counter # reading in shared resource    time.sleep(random.randint(0, 1)) # simulating heavy calculations    counter = current_counter + 1 # updating shared resource

The goal of the preceding update() function is to increment a global variable called counter, and ...