How to obtain a Thread id in Python?

threading.get_ident() works, or threading.current_thread().ident (or threading.currentThread().ident for Python < 2.6).

The thread.get_ident() function returns a long integer on Linux. It's not really a thread id.

I use this method to really get the thread id on Linux:

import ctypes
libc = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('libc.so.6')

# System dependent, see e.g. /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/asm/unistd_64.h
SYS_gettid = 186

def getThreadId():
   """Returns OS thread id - Specific to Linux"""
   return libc.syscall(SYS_gettid)

Using the logging module you can automatically add the current thread identifier in each log entry. Just use one of these LogRecord mapping keys in your logger format string:

%(thread)d : Thread ID (if available).

%(threadName)s : Thread name (if available).

and set up your default handler with it:

logging.basicConfig(format="%(threadName)s:%(message)s")

This functionality is now supported by Python 3.8+ :)

You can now use: threading.get_native_id()

https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/4959c33d2555b89b494c678d99be81a65ee864b0

https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/11993