passing kwargs with multiprocessing.pool.map

karl k picture karl k · Dec 1, 2015 · Viewed 13k times · Source

I would like to pass keyword arguments to my worker-function with Pool.map(). I can't find a clear example of this when searching forums.

Example Code:

import multiprocessing as mp

def worker((x,y), **kwargs):
    kwarg_test = kwargs.get('kwarg_test', False)
    print("kwarg_test = {}".format(kwarg_test))     
    if kwarg_test:
        print("Success")
    return x*y

def wrapper_process(**kwargs):
    jobs = []
    pool=mp.Pool(4)
    for i, n in enumerate(range(4)):
        jobs.append((n,i))
    pool.map(worker, jobs) #works
    pool.map(worker, jobs, kwargs) #how to do this?   

def main(**kwargs):
    worker((1,2),kwarg_test=True) #accepts kwargs
    wrapper_process(kwarg_test=True)

if __name__ == "__main__":    
    main()

Output:

kwarg_test = True
Success
kwarg_test = False
kwarg_test = False
kwarg_test = False
kwarg_test = False
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for //: 'int' and 'dict'

The type error has to do with parsing arguments inside of multiprocessing.Pool or Queue, and I have tried several other syntaxes, like making a list of the kwargs; [kwargs, kwargs, kwargs, kwargs], as well as several attempts to include the kwarg in the jobs list but no luck. I traced the code in multiprocessing.pool from map to map_async and got as far as task_batches = Pool._get_tasks(func, iterable, chunksize) in pool.py when I encountered the generator structure. I'm happy to learn more about this in future but for now I am just trying to find out:

Is there a simple syntax for allowing the passing of kwargs with pool.map?

Answer

Mark picture Mark · Sep 7, 2016

If you want to iterate over the other arguments, use @ArcturusB's answer.

If you just want to pass them, having the same value for each iteration, then you can do this:

from functools import partial
pool.map(partial(worker, **kwargs), jobs)

Partial 'binds' arguments to a function. Old versions of Python cannot serialize partial objects though.