changing params in while loop

[robin]

hi,

i'm a newbie, but please bear with me for a second.
i have this function inside a while-loop, which i'd like to loop
forever, but i'm not sure about how to change the parameters of my
function once it is running.
what is the best way to do that? do i have to use threading or is there
some simpler way?
here's some code to show the structure of the problem:

from time import *

b = 44

def printStuff(a):
print a
sleep(1)
print b
sleep(1)

while 1:
printStuff("bibi")

now how can i make printStuff() print "fifi" instead of "bibi" or 88
instead of 44 once it is running?

thank y'all for your help
do the snake!

robin

 

[Ben Cartwright]

i have this function inside a while-loop, which i'd like to loop
forever, but i'm not sure about how to change the parameters of my
function once it is running.
what is the best way to do that? do i have to use threading or is there
some simpler way?

Why not just do this inside the function? What exactly are you trying
to accomplish here? Threading could work here, but like regexes,
threads are not only tricky to get right but also tricky to know when
to use in the first place.

That being said, here's some example threading code to get you started
(PrinterThread.run is your function; the ThreadSafeStorage instance
holds your parameters):

import threading
import time

class ThreadSafeStorage(object):
def __init__(self):
object.__setattr__(self, '_lock', threading.RLock())
def acquirelock(self):
object.__getattribute__(self, '_lock').acquire()
def releaselock(self):
object.__getattribute__(self, '_lock').release()
def __getattribute__(self, attr):
if attr in ('acquirelock', 'releaselock'):
return object.__getattribute__(self, attr)
self.acquirelock()
value = object.__getattribute__(self, attr)
self.releaselock()
return value
def __setattr__(self, attr, value):
self.acquirelock()
object.__setattr__(self, attr, value)
self.releaselock()

class PrinterThread(threading.Thread):
"""Prints the data in shared storage once per second."""
storage = None
def run(self):
while not self.storage.killprinter:
self.storage.acquirelock()
print 'message:', self.storage.message
print 'ticks:', self.storage.ticks
self.storage.ticks += 1
self.storage.releaselock()
time.sleep(1)

data = ThreadSafeStorage()
data.killprinter = False
data.message = 'hello world'
data.ticks = 0
thread = PrinterThread()
thread.storage = data
thread.start()
# do some stuff in the main thread
time.sleep(3)
data.acquirelock()
data.message = 'modified ticks'
data.ticks = 100
data.releaselock()
time.sleep(3)
data.message = 'goodbye world'
time.sleep(1)
# notify printer thread that it needs to die
data.killprinter = True
thread.join()

# output:
"""
message: hello world
ticks: 0
message: hello world
ticks: 1
message: hello world
ticks: 2
message: modified ticks
ticks: 100
message: modified ticks
ticks: 101
message: modified ticks
ticks: 102
message: goodbye world
ticks: 103
"""

--Ben