The PyDict_SetDefault(mp, key, defaultobj) function returns a borrowed reference to the value corresponding to key. This poses a thread-safety issue particularly for the case where key is already in the dict. In the --disable-gil builds, the returned value may no longer be valid if another thread concurrently modifies the dict.

Proposal (from Victor)

int PyDict_SetDefaultRef(PyObject *dict, PyObject *key, PyObject *default_value, PyObject **value);

The **value pointer is optional. If it is NULL, it is not used.

• If the key is present in the dict, set *value to a new reference to the current value (if value is not NULL), and return 1.
• If the key is missing from the dict, insert the key and default_value, and set *value to a new reference to default_value (if value is not NULL), and return 0.
• On error, set *value to NULL if value is not NULL, and return -1.

Ideally, this new function would be public and part of the stable ABI so that it could be used by all extensions, but even an internal-only function would unblock some of the nogil changes.

EDIT: Updated with @vstinner's proposal

Linked PRs

• gh-112066: Add PyDict_SetDefaultRef function. #112123
• gh-112066: Use PyDict_SetDefaultRef in place of PyDict_SetDefault. #112211
• gh-112066: Fix versionadded in PyDict_SetDefaultRef docs #118696
• [3.13] gh-112066: Fix versionadded in PyDict_SetDefaultRef docs (GH-118696) #119430