How can I use timeouts in locks?

What are timeouts in locks and why are they important?

Timeouts in locks are mechanisms that prevent a thread from waiting indefinitely to acquire a lock. They are important because they help avoid deadlocks and improve the responsiveness of applications.

How do I implement a timeout in a lock in Python?

In Python, you can use the threading.Lock class with the acquire method, which accepts a timeout parameter. For example: lock.acquire(timeout=5) will wait for 5 seconds before giving up.

Can you give me an example of using timeouts in a multi-threaded application?

Sure! Here's a simple example: You can create multiple threads that try to acquire a lock with a timeout. If a thread can't acquire the lock within the specified time, it can handle the situation gracefully, like retrying or logging an error.

What happens if I don't use timeouts in my locks?

If you don't use timeouts, a thread may block indefinitely if it can't acquire the lock, leading to potential deadlocks and unresponsive applications.