python - Multiprocessing a function with several inputs

Question

In Python the multiprocessing module can be used to run a function over a range of values in parallel. For example, this produces a list of the first 100000 evaluations of f.

def f(i):
    return i * i

def main():
    import multiprocessing
    pool = multiprocessing.Pool(2)
    ans = pool.map(f, range(100000))

    return ans

Can a similar thing be done when f takes multiple inputs but only one variable is varied? For example, how would you parallelize this:

def f(i, n):
    return i * i + 2*n

def main():
    ans = []
    for i in range(100000):
        ans.append(f(i, 20))

    return ans

Answer 1

You can use functools.partial()

def f(i, n):
    return i * i + 2*n

def main():
    import multiprocessing
    pool = multiprocessing.Pool(2)
    ans = pool.map(functools.partial(f, n=20), range(100000))

    return ans