Terminating a function

[Astan Chee]

Hi,
Im rather new to threads in python but Im trying to terminate a function
call (or the execution of the function) after a certain period of time
has passed.
Do i need to use threads with this? if i do, how do i go about doing it?
Thanks

 

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Hi,
Im rather new to threads in python but Im trying to terminate a function
call (or the execution of the function) after a certain period of time
has passed.
Do i need to use threads with this? if i do, how do i go about doing it?

Yes and no. As you didn't tell us muc about your actual problem, threads
might be what you need. But you _can't_ just stop a thread - however,
depending on what you do, you can for example regularly check for a flag
inside your function and then terminate:

class Foo(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
super(Foo, self).__init__()
self.setDaemon(True)
self.interrupted = False

def run(self):
while not self.interrupted:
do_some_work_but_make_sure_to_come_back_regularly()


f = Foo()
f.start()

time.sleep(10)
f.interrupted = True

Diez

 

[wittempj]

This might be all you need:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/473878

 

[Ian Leitch]

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I was thinking of threads but I just simply want to terminate a (global)
function after it has been running for more than 5 minutes regardless of
state.
I was assuming I needed threads because it can calculate time elapsed
(that and im rather inexperienced with threads)
Thanks again for your help!

You can use a thread to do the timing and send an interrupt when the
time is up:

#!/usr/bin/python

import thread
import threading
from time import sleep

def timer_thread():

sleep(10)
thread.interrupt_main()

def my_func():

try:

while 1:

sleep(2)
print "Hello"

except KeyboardInterrupt:

return

my_thread = threading.Thread(target=timer_thread)
my_thread.start()

my_func()

print "Done."
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