Conflicting documentation for -X gil compiler flag (3.13)

Documentation
,
1

I noticed that in the “What’s New in Python 3.13” section for 3.13rc1, the documentation says

Free-threaded builds of CPython support optionally running with the GIL enabled at runtime using the environment variable PYTHON_GIL or the command-line option -X gil.

Whereas the documentation for the miscellaneous command line options reads:

-X gil=0,1 forces the GIL to be disabled or enabled, respectively.

That seems inconsistent to me. Do you need the equals sign and value or not?

2

The default is to run with the GIL, so -Xgil implies -Xgil=1. It would probably be a little clearer if the what’s new entry referred to it with the =0. I agree the truth value being inverted from what you usually expect - the default case is “on” - is a little confusing at first glance.

3 Likes
3

Well, if you want to talk about confusing command-line flags, --disable-gil should probably be --disablable-gil.

OK, thanks for the clarification!