Mastering GUI Programming with Python

Testing the script

Go ahead and launch this script and let's see how it works. Point your source directory at a folder full of large files, such as DVD images, archive files, or video files. Leave the threads' spin box at its default setting and click on Go.

Notice from the console output that the files are being hashed two at a time. As soon as one completes, another one starts until all of the files have been hashed.

Try it again, but this time bump the threads up to four or five. Notice that more files are being processed at once. As you play with this value, you may also notice that there is a point of diminishing returns, especially as you approach the number of cores in your CPU. This is an important lesson about parallelization—sometimes, ...